Oregon state and county health officials on Tuesday reported a profusion of new cases of the novel coronavirus and the second death in Oregon with a known link to the disease.

The 60-year-old woman died March 14 at a Lane County hospital, but it wasn’t until late Tuesday that tests confirmed she had contracted COVID-19, county officials said.

The woman’s death and the spike in new cases brings the number of known COVID-19 patients in the state to 68.

Eight people in Washington County and another four in Clackamas County tested positive for the virus, officials said.

Four other patients are residents of Linn, Lane, Marion and Multnomah counties, according to state and county health officials.

There are now known coronavirus cases in 14 of Oregon’s 36 counties: 22 in Washington County; 15 in Linn County; six each in Clackamas and Deschutes counties; four in Marion County; three in Multnomah County; two each in Benton, Jackson, Lane and Umatilla counties, and; one each in Douglas, Klamath, Polk and Yamhill counties.

State health experts have said they expected the number of reported cases to increase as testing capacity expands throughout Oregon and as the virus continues to spread rapidly among people.

“Oregon’s health care providers and public health officials have prepared for a pandemic,” said Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority. “We have a plan.”

Lane County health officials said the woman who died lived in the Eugene-Springfield area and was treated at PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend.

The county’s other case is a 69-year-old man who is in stable condition and recovering at home. The man first started showing symptoms March 1 and was tested by his health care provider 12 days later, officials said, adding they didn’t know how he contracted the virus.

Wendy Gordon, a spokeswoman for the Washington County Department of Health and Human Services, said of the county’s 22 cases so far, eight patients are female and 14 are male. She said nine of the patients are older than 55, eight are between the ages of 35 and 54, two are between 18 and 24 years old, and three are younger than 17.

Gordon said she couldn’t go into specifics about the patients’ conditions, but said 17 of the patients had mild illnesses and were recovering at home, while five were hospitalized. She said none of the known cases in Washington County were related to international travel, and all were likely from close contact with a known case or community spread from an unknown case.

Representatives for Clackamas and Marion counties declined to provide details about their new coronavirus cases or didn’t respond to requests for information from The Oregonian/OregonLive. Officials in Linn and Multnomah counties referred questions to the Oregon Health Authority, which did not provide additional details.

All of Linn County’s coronavirus cases have occurred at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home in Lebanon.

One person has died from coronavirus in Oregon — a 70-year-old Multnomah County man, who had a preexisting health problems, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

In the last day, 279 more people in Oregon have tested negative for coronavirus, while another 215 are awaiting results, according to figures published on the health authority’s website. To date, 1,248 people in Oregon have undergone testing — more than half of them since Friday.

People older than 55 account for 42 of the confirmed cases in Oregon, 15 are between 35 and 54, one is between 25 and 34 and seven others are under 25.

In Washington state, 52 people are known to have died from COVID-19 as of Tuesday, the most in the country. More than 1,000 people in Washington there have tested positive for the virus.

The Oregonian/OregonLive’s Jayati Ramakrishnan contributed to this report.

This story was corrected to update the age ranges of patients in Washington County, one category of which was originally provided erroneously. There are two patients ages 18 to 24.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh; 503-294-7632

Email at skavanaugh@oregonian.com

Follow on Twitter @shanedkavanaugh

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