New daily coronavirus cases in Oregon topped 300 Friday for the second consecutive day, fueled by infections in Multnomah, Umatilla, Washington and Marion counties.
The Oregon Health Authority reported 344 new confirmed and presumptive cases, bringing the state total to 9,636.
It was the second-highest daily count since the state’s outbreak began in February. The state set a record Thursday with 375 daily cases, eclipsing 281 the day before. The health authority reported no new deaths, with the toll remaining at 209.
Twenty-eight of Oregon’s 36 counties reported new cases: Benton (7), Clackamas (22), Clatsop (1), Columbia (3), Coos (1), Crook (1), Deschutes (9), Douglas (1), Jackson (9), Jefferson (5), Josephine (3), Klamath (2), Lake (1), Lane (16), Lincoln (18), Linn (2), Malheur (20), Marion (32), Morrow (10), Multnomah (59), Polk (5), Sherman (1), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (49), Union (8), Wasco (10), Washington (46) and Yamhill (1).
Gov. Kate Brown on Friday also identified eight rural counties as hot spots and placed them on a “watch list”: Jefferson, Lake, Lincoln, Malheur, Morrow, Umatilla, Union, Wasco. State and local health officials will monitor them and send additional unspecified resources to try to stop spread of the disease, the health authority said in a statement.
Those counties have recorded the state’s highest rates of “sporadic” transmission from mid-June through the beginning of July, the health authority said. That means cases that don’t have a clear link to other cases or outbreaks “and therefore indicate that the virus is spreading uncontained in a community,” the agency said in a statement.
Umatilla County has been hit particularly hard. About 240 county residents caught the virus from an unknown source in that period state data shows. While Multnomah County had more such cases with about 290, its rate per 100,000 people was far lower: 37 “sporadic spread” cases per 100,000 people to Umatilla County’s 313.
More than half of the state’s new cases for the week ending June 27 have no clear link to other cases, according to state data.
Despite the rising case counts and concern that health officials don’t know how the virus is spreading in some of the counties, Oregon still has lower per capita coronavirus case and death counts than most states, according to a New York Times database.
Only Vermont, Alaska, West Virginia and Montana have reported fewer cases per 100,000 people than Oregon, and only Wyoming, Montana, Alaska and Hawaii have reported fewer deaths, according to The Times.
— Margaret Haberman and Fedor Zarkhin