Wednesday, September 30, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Commentary...
Oregon’s COVID-19 situation needs improvement
By Dave Tremblay
Columnist
In 2020, our lives have
been influenced greatly by
COVID-19. Unfortunately,
many families have experi-
enced personal, tragic loss.
In every facet of normal
life throughout Oregon 4
its 4.3 million residents and
36 counties 4 Governor
Brown9s decisions and proc-
lamations have a timely,
important impact on all of us.
In the United States, we just
surpassed 205,000 deaths.
Following are key facts
about Oregon9s COVID-19
situation from the Oregon
Health Authority (OHA) web-
site, https://govstatus.egov.
com/OR-OHA-COVID-19.
Note: COVID-19 reporting
procedures are dynamic 4
with the objective to capture
and use data better.
First case: February 28
First death: March 14
Oregon statics (as of
9/27): 32,820 cases, 2,470
hospitalizations, 547 deaths
Deschutes County (as of
9/27): 810 cases, 62 hospi-
talizations, 12 deaths
Sisters, OR (as of 9/25):
25 cases
How do we better under-
stand COVID-19 and its
impact? We look at its past
process behavior. Everything
is a process. Then, we overlay
important events to under-
stand cause-and-effect. Our
analysis specifically looks for
sustainability, predictability,
and associated impact(s).
An important example of
the analysis? There is one
hospitalization in 13 diag-
nosed COVID-19 cases; the
hospitalization rate is 7.7 per-
cent to the number to cases.
Of course, that is a major
health and societal outcome
of contracting COVID-19.
Within the COVID-19
behavior, we analyzed total
cases and resultant hospi-
talizations from February 2
through September 19.
A key conclusion that was
quantified?
We need to reduce the
current, weekly average case
number from 1,564 weekly
cases (August 2 - September
19) to the minimal, <statisti-
cally derived, stay-at-home=
number of 437. That is a
herculean reduction of 358
percent! Importantly, the cor-
related hospitalization rate
would decline significantly
as well.
In the Oregon COVID-
19 Cases chart (see chart,
this page), each week
is from Sunday through
Saturday. Two critical
events are plotted, Oregon9s
Reopening (June 5) and the
Masks/Enhanced Safety
Proclamation (July 1).
The top date on the x-axis
is the date of tallied/presented
data by the OHA. The lower
date assumes when COVID-
19 may have been contracted
3 14 days prior. By using this
barometer, we gain infor-
mation 4 such as possible
increases after holidays.
There are four different
stages in the COVID-19 pro-
cess behavior graph. Now, it
seems, we are entering into
Stage 5.
Stage 1: Early indica-
tions of COVID; February 2
through March 7.
Stage 2: Governor
Brown9s <Stay Home, Save
Lives= order; March 23 -
early June.
Stage 3: Re-opening of 31
of 36 Oregon counties.
Stage 4: Statewide mask/
safety measures. July 1
through present.
From February through
May 24, the hospitalization
rate to the cases was higher
than the subsequent period.
Perhaps Oregon9s medical
professionals were com-
passionately conservative
to further diagnosis/treat-
ment? After April 26th, more
available testing could have
reduced the prior hospitaliza-
tion to case percentage, too.
Our heroic medical staffs
were using medicine and
technology to provide their
best diagnosis and care.
Weekly cases were quite
predictable during the <Stay
Home, Save Lives= period.
From March 15 through
May 30, weekly cases aver-
aged 388; ranging from 302
to 451. This proclamation9s
results show the total case
was relatively stable; thereby
our hunkered-down behav-
ior effective. <Not good,=
however, since people were
adversely affected stiller, but
steadily.
See COVID-19 on page 15
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