Oregon to start tracking presumptive cases, May 4

Starting Friday, May 1, OHA has begun tracking presumptive COVID-19 cases in its daily reports, consistent with recently amended guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A presumptive case is someone who does not have a positive PCR, a test that confirm if a person has COVID-19 but is showing symptoms, and had close contact with a confirmed case. If they later test positive by PCR, those will be recategorized as confirmed cases. The first results of that revised tracking will be reported in the daily report starting Monday, May 4. The number of new presumptive cases will be reported alongside the number of confirmed cases. Clinical and demographic characteristics for confirmed and presumptive cases will be included together in the daily report. We will report out the total number of deaths among confirmed and presumptive cases. Absent a positive PCR test result, the case will remain a presumptive case. A presumptive case is investigated by local public health authorities as they would a confirmed case. Presumptive cases are asked to follow the same self-isolation protocol as confirmed cases. In rare instances, a presumptive case will later be diagnosed with another disease that better explains their illness. In those instances, the presumptive COVID-19 case will be recategorized and they will no longer be reported as a COVID-19 case.