Empty beds in the hallway of the emergency room at Salem Hospital (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
Covid cases are ticking up again in Oregon both statewide and in the Salem area. Hospitalizations remain low locally and regionally, but have increased from a low point several weeks ago. Here’s our report for April 22, 2022.
HOSPITAL CAPACITY
Hospitalization numbers at Salem Hospital are still near their low point for the entire pandemic, while the region’s numbers have climbed over the past week.
Salem Health stopped publishing weekly reports on Covid inpatients on March 25 as the number has continued to decline. As of Friday, April 22, the hospital had eight inpatients with Covid, two of whom were in the ICU, and none on ventilators.
There were 470 of 494 licensed hospital beds in use.
Lisa Wood, Salem Health spokeswoman, said the number of hospitalized Covid patients over the past week has remained steady at seven or eight.
The graph below shows the hospital’s trends from the start of the delta surge until March 25, when weekly reporting stopped.
(Graphic by Saphara Harrell/Salem Reporter)
Region 2, which is Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, had 21 people hospitalized with Covid as of April 21, compared with 14 the week prior and 15 two weeks ago.
CASES
The number of new Covid cases reported climbed statewide and in Marion and Polk Counties. This data is for the week ending April 20.
Marion County: 35 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 70.2 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s up from 21.1 average daily cases for the week ending April 14, and 18 average daily cases the week ending April 6.
4.7% of Covid tests this week were positive.
Polk County: 12.4 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 103.8 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s up from an average of 5.9 daily cases the week ending April 14 and 4 daily cases the week ending April 6.
7.1% of Covid tests this week were positive.
Oregon: 648 new cases per day on average, up from 417 average daily cases the week prior; 6.3% of tests positive, compared with 5.4% the week prior.
VACCINATION AND BREAKTHROUGH CASES
The Oregon Health Authority said in early April it would reduce the frequency of its breakthrough case reports to monthly. The next report will be published May 5.
MANDATES
Oregon’s mask mandate lifted on March 11 at 11:59 p.m.
-Rachel Alexander
