Change is rapid amid the coronavirus outbreak, and for state officials and public health experts, every day is a race against the disease. Infections are spreading quickly, and experts predict that tens of thousands of Oregonians may become ill. The sickest patients may far outnumber available hospital beds.

Gov. Kate Brown announced new state-led efforts last week to prepare for the surge in COVID-19 patients, including measures to conserve supplies and the establishment of a 250-bed emergency hospital in Salem in anticipation of a flood of COVID-19 in patients.

But the looming deficit in supplies and health care capacity herald a possible healthcare crisis. Medical experts believe the number of infections will double every 6.2 days, and one in five infected Oregonians will require medical care.

The virus has already spread to more than half of Oregon’s 36 counties, and in many regions residents already face serious barriers to accessing health care.

The Oregonian/OregonLive analyzed and mapped the state’s hospital capacity, as well as key demographic metrics, to help illustrate the potential gaps in health care services if COVID-19 infections become rampant, as public health experts predict.

The news organization gathered information from the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems about the number of existing hospitals and staffed hospital beds in every county in the state. Bed counts are based on data from 2019 and provide a snapshot of the state’s health care system before the COVID-19 outbreak.

We paired the hospital data with census population and poverty figures for every county. Because people over 60 are especially vulnerable to the worst outcomes associated with COVID-19, we also included census data that tracks how many residents are 65 and older.

The resulting map shows where medical resources are concentrated and reveals areas where resources are lacking, and residents are more likely to face barriers accessing care.

The shading on the map, which is based on the ratio of existing beds compared to population, highlights the counties where there are more people for every hospital bed.

Click here if you do not see the above map

An analysis of the map and the underlying data shows:

Umatilla County, in northeast Oregon, has one of the highest ratios of population to hospital beds. There are only 50 total beds for a population of 77,516. By contrast, neighboring Wallowa County has a population of 7,081 and 25 total beds.

Polk County, in the Willamette Valley, has six total beds and 81,427 people, though residents in Polk often travel to hospitals in neighboring counties, particularly Marion County.

The hospital and population figures also reveal many counties have large older populations that could be at highest risk. In Douglas County, for example, there are 26,671 residents 65 or older and only 145 total hospital beds.

Many rural communities have large concentrations of residents who are 65 or older, yet fewer hospital beds to treat them. Malheur County, in Eastern Oregon, has 4,901 residents who are at least 65 years old and 49 total beds.

Some of the higher poverty levels in Oregon were in Wheeler, Grant and Curry counties, where more than three in ten residents live in poverty. Poverty levels indicate places where populations are more likely to have a difficult time weathering the impacts of the virus—such as loss of jobs due to quarantine or time off work because of sickness—and where barriers to healthcare access may be more burdensome for financial reasons.

Gilliam and Sherman rank sixth and seventh for highest poverty rates among the state’s 36 counties. Wheeler, Gilliam and Sherman counties, in north central Oregon, don’t have any hospitals. In these counties residents seek care locally at community health care centers and when needed rely on hospital systems in neighboring counties with larger populations.

Explore the map to see a snapshot of Oregon’s hospital system in the early stages of the novel coronavirus outbreak.

-- Piper McDaniel; amcdaniel@oregonian.com; 503-221-4307; @piperamcdaniel

-- Mark Friesen

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