Oregon Now Has More Than 1,000 Cases of COVID-19

Oregon now has more than 1,000 COVID-19 cases, as the number of people tested continues to climb.

The Oregon Health Authority said Sunday that 1,068 Oregonians have tested positive for the coronavirus. State officials have predicted a rise in identified cases as more tests become available.

The number of hospitalizations and deaths also continued to rise. At least 258 people have been hospitalized with COVID-19, and 27 Oregonians have died after contracting it. (One more death and 19 more hospitalizations were announced Sunday.)

The increases in deaths and hospitalizations are considered a better reflection of the virus's spread than the case count, though those data points may themselves be incomplete. OHA reported that in 140 of the state's 1,068 cases, it's not clear whether they involved hospitalization.

And as The New York Times reported, it's also unclear if, given the absence of widespread testing in the United States, all COVID-19 deaths are being documented.

According to a Times analysis, the number of deaths in Oregon is doubling about every four days, which puts the state on the lower end of increases in the United States. By contrast, deaths in South Korea, which has fought the virus with aggressive testing and contract tracing, have doubled every four weeks.

Of Oregon's coronavirus cases, 259 have been in Washington County and 233 in Multnomah County.

For days now, the state has failed to identify how many hospital beds and ventilators are in use as well as how many COVID-19 patients need a ventilator. Even so, Gov. Kate Brown sent 140 ventilators to New York as that state faces the largest outbreak in the country, which suggests Oregon officials are confident in projections that show the state flattening the curve sufficiently not to completely overwhelm hospital resources.