A snapshot of Marion County’s COVID-19 heatmap on May 4, 2020.
Marion County again saw a jump in residents testing positive for COVID-19 over the weekend, with no clear epicenter.
Sixty-five people in the county had a positive test come back between May 1 and May 4, data from Marion County Health & Human Services shows.
As of Monday morning, 561 county residents have tested positive for the virus, second only to Multnomah County, according to Oregon Health Authority.
Nineteen have died, the latest a 91-year-old woman who died at Salem Hospital on April 30.
Health workers haven’t yet analyzed those newly testing positive to see how many are connected to other known COVID-19 cases, or how many occurred within households.
County spokeswoman Jenna Wright said without that data, it’s “too early to make any definitive conclusions about the cases” or whether they indicate residents are doing a poor job following social distancing guidelines.
But the county’s geographical data suggest no one region of Marion County accounts for the new cases.
Woodburn accounted for a large share, with nine residents newly testing positive. The Woodburn ZIP code has been the hardest hit in the county, with a rate of cases more than seven times the state average.
Southeast Salem – ZIP code 97317 – saw 10 new residents test positive in recent days. That area includes Santiam Correctional Institution, which has had six employees and seven inmates test positive for the virus as of May 1. No additional tests were pending as of May 1, spokeswoman Jennifer Black said, meaning it’s unlikely the prison accounts for the latest increase.
Keizer and central Salem also saw increases.
It’s also not clear how many of the new cases are connected to a nursing home. The state releases those numbers weekly on Tuesdays.
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Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers city news, education, nonprofits and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for a decade. Outside of work, she’s a skater and board member with Salem’s Cherry City Roller Derby and can often be found with her nose buried in a book.
