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Governor Kate Brown on Thursday approved the state’s abrupt decision to stop releasing detailed summaries of every Oregonian with COVID-19 who dies during the pandemic.
The Oregon Health Authority announced the decision at 4 p.m. Wednesday, saying the number of new deaths would still be reported daily in summary, with aggregate information on age, gender and county residence available online.
For more than 10 months, the health authority has listed information for every Oregonian who died, including age, county, place of death, date of a positive coronavirus test, date of death, and attendance. general underlying health problems.
But state officials say providing so much detail has become too much work, essentially requiring a full-time position. It is not known if another state provided as much detail as Oregon on the individual deaths.
The state’s decision to limit information was immediately criticized by some state lawmakers.
Senator Michael Dembrow, a Democrat from Portland who writes a daily newsletter filled with coronavirus news and analysis, has contacted health officials and asked officials to reconsider their decision to no avail.
“I think there is real human value in seeing these people we have lost every day, even though we don’t know their names, or really a lot about them, other than their age and where they live,” Dembrow wrote in a message. Wednesday night to voters. “Yet, they appear as individuals, as more than a statistic. I appreciate this, especially in the midst of this terrible pandemic, and I know many of you do too.
Senate Republicans suggested on Twitter that the move to cut back on available information “smells like a cover-up from here.”
Dru Draper, a spokesperson for the caucus, said Thursday that the health authority should release biographical details as it has done throughout the pandemic.
“It looks like it was working,” he says. “At the end of the day, what’s the reason for giving people less information? Why are we changing the way we report deaths all of a sudden? “
Draper noted that deaths have declined since December, so health officials should take less time to compile details for release. Announcing the change now, he said, appears to be aligned with an effort to narrow down the precise details of deaths on the elderly who, under the leadership of the state’s Democratic governor, are behind teachers in the order. vaccination.
“It seems like that was the only thing that could have changed the math,” Draper said.
House Republicans also criticized the change.
“Decision to withhold access to key information calls into question the governor’s commitment to transparency and accountability at a time when state-level decisions have made Oregon a national outlier by ignoring CDC guidelines and rejecting a scientific approach to vaccine distribution, ”Republican Chief Christine Drazan of Canby said in a statement.
“In order to maintain trust and preserve transparency, Governor Brown and the OHA must reverse yesterday’s decision and commit to providing clear, consistent and timely data across all categories going forward,” she added.
Brown’s office on Thursday defended health officials’ decision to stop providing detailed reports of the deaths. A spokesperson touted the state’s new data dashboard, unveiled on Wednesday, as a way to provide more timely information that “will continue to give Oregonians a full picture of COVID-19 deaths in the world.” State ”without as much hard work for state officials.
“To my knowledge, no state in the country is releasing as much COVID-19 data to the media and the public as Oregon,” Charles Boyle said in a statement.
On the last day of detailed reporting earlier this week, Oregon reported details of 22 deaths, including 17 seniors. As an example, the state’s 1,888th death was an 82-year-old Douglas County man with underlying medical conditions who tested positive on January 14 and died on January 23 at Mercy Medical Center .
That level of detail is now gone.
Health officials noted Thursday that of the six new deaths reported, four were in people 80 and older, one death was an Oregonian aged 70 to 79 and one was 60 to 69.
This information was already available online by following the cumulative evolution of deaths by age group.
The state has not announced any deaths by gender or county. But following the cumulative changes online, statistics show three men have died and three women have died, according to The Oregonian / OregonLive. The deaths included residents of Columbia, Deschutes, Douglas, Klamath, Malheur and Multnomah counties.
Ending the detailed descriptions of the deaths will make it difficult to know precisely how many Oregon seniors test positive for the coronavirus and then die during the time that Brown allowed teachers to receive vaccines before the elderly.
The newsroom on Thursday filed for public registration for each of the 20 deaths announced a day earlier, seeking basic biographical information the state previously disclosed.
State officials have yet to respond. But the agency has previously denied similar requests for information stored in its online public health database, saying state law makes such data and information exempt from disclosure – unless officials choose to disclose them.
State officials began providing detailed information on the first death on March 14. Faced with concerns about insufficient transparency on other coronavirus data, Brown said later in the month she had ordered health authorities to “share any COVID-19 information with the public that does not compromise confidentiality patients . “
Here is the full statement from Brown’s spokesperson on Thursday:
“Governor Brown is committed to ensuring the people of Oregon have timely information on COVID-19. Since the start of the pandemic, Oregon has set a national standard of transparency in reporting COVID-19 cases and deaths on a daily basis. However, in recent weeks, reconciliation of death data has started to significantly delay daily reports –– with daily reports sometimes not being issued until evening –– due to the time it takes for state epidemiologists to verify information from each death certificate. To ensure that reports are more timely, the Oregon Health Authority has opted to use a data dashboard to continue to give Oregon residents a full picture of COVID-19 deaths in the ‘State. This change will also allow Oregon data to be included in daily national data updates – something which had recently been made difficult due to the late hour when Oregon data was being reported. To my knowledge, no state in the country is releasing as much COVID-19 data to the media and the public as Oregon.
This was an internal reporting decision made by the OHA, however, I have confirmed that the OHA will still be able to include information on deaths from COVID-19, with age ranges, in their daily updates.
– Brad Schmidt; [email protected]; 503-294-7628; @_brad_schmidt
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