OHA Public Health Director Rachael Banks during today’s press conference: "I want to give you an overview of the pandemic in Oregon and an update on the progress of our vaccination efforts."
"As @OregonGovBrown said, we just don’t have enough vaccines to immunize everyone. As long as supplies are scarce, we’ll face really tough calls on who to immunize next. There are good reasons to prioritize educators & good reasons to prioritize seniors."
"The plan is to vaccinate most educators before we start vaccinating seniors on February 8. If we want to give schools a shot at re-opening this school year with a vaccinated staff, this is the time to do it."
"Overall, new cases, hospitalizations and our test positivity rate have all declined. Thank you Oregonians.”
“As of today, we’re adding 877 new cases of COVID-19 in Oregon. There have been 136,839 reported cases of COVID-19 in Oregon to date. During the week of Jan. 11-17, we reported 7,860 new daily cases, a 4% decrease from the prev. week."