Empty beds in the hallway of the emergency room at Salem Hospital (Amanda Loman/Salem Reporter)
New Covid cases reported locally continued to fall this week and decreased statewide after spiking last week. Hospitalizations are also down locally and regionally.
HOSPITAL CAPACITY
The average number of Covid patients at Salem Hospital decreased from last week, and the hospital remains very full.
As of Friday, June 17, the hospital reported 17 patients with Covid, and were none in the ICU or on a ventilator.
There were 498 patients, exceeding the 494 licensed hospital beds. The hospital is able to care for more patients than its license allows because of ongoing emergency declarations related to the pandemic.
Lisa Wood, Salem Health spokeswoman, said the number of hospitalized Covid patients over the past week has remained between 15 and 18. Last week, Wood said the daily number hospitalized with Covid was between 23 and 28.
Region 2, which is Marion, Polk, Yamhill, Linn, Benton and Lincoln counties, had 40 people hospitalized with Covid as of June 16, compared with 53 the week prior and 48 two weeks ago.
CASES
The number of new Covid cases reported fell in Marion County and statewide but climbed in Polk County. This data is for the week ending June 15.
Marion County: 91 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 182 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s down from 100 average daily cases for the week ending June 8 and 104 average daily cases the week ending June 2.
And 12% of Covid tests this week were positive, down slightly from 12.1% last week.
Polk County: 32 new Covid cases per day on average, a rate of 265 cases per 100,000 residents.
That’s up from an average of 29 daily cases the week ending June 8.
And 12.8% of Covid tests this week were positive, up from 10.4% last week.
Oregon: 1,391 new cases per day on average, down from 1,565 average daily cases the week prior; 12.6% of tests positive, compared with 11.5% the week prior.
VACCINATION AND BREAKTHROUGH CASES
The Oregon Health Authority switched to a monthly report on breakthrough cases and will release its next report in early July.
MANDATES
Oregon’s mask mandate lifted on March 11 at 11:59 p.m.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
