PORTLAND, Ore. — After more than a month of not tracking whether people who tested positive for COVID-19 have recovered, the Oregon Health Authority is reversing course.
OHA previously said it wasn’t tallying recoveries because that data wasn’t reported to them by hospitals and county health departments. But in its weekly report published on Tuesday, the agency said it is calling every person who tested positive to determine if they’ve recovered and when they recovered.
The data released by OHA dates back to Sunday, when there were 1,928 known coronavirus cases in the state, including 75 people who had died. Of the 1,853 surviving cases, 595 of them (32%) were determined to have recovered. A person is considered recovered once they are free of fever (without the use of a fever-reducing medication), cough and shortness of breath for 72 hours.
OHA determined 682 people (36%) have not yet recovered. The recovery status of the other 576 people (31%) was still being determined. Public health staff plan to call each person weekly until they have recovered.
Of the people who recovered, OHA said the median time for recovery was 14 days. The median recovery time for people who were hospitalized was a little bit longer -- 16 days -- according to OHA.
As of Tuesday, there are 2,002 total known COVID-19 cases, including 78 people who have died.
