A Didi Chuxing autonomous taxi during a pilot test drive on the streets in Shanghai.
Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images
Didi Global,
the Uber of China, delivered one of the year’s biggest IPOs, raising $4.4 billion.
On Wednesday, shares of Didi (ticker: DIDI) opened at $16.65, reached a high of $18.01 and then dropped. The stock tumbled to a low of $14.10, a dime above its IPO price. This means Didi traded close to its $14 offer price and was in danger of being considered a broken deal if it drops further. In late afternoon trading, the stock rebounded and recently changed hands at $14.69, up nearly 5% from its offer price.
The muted performance came during a busy day for IPOs. Didi was one of 10 companies that opened for trading on Wednesday.
The Chinese ride-hailing behemoth said it sold 316.8 million American depositary shares at $14, the top of its $13-to-$14 price range. Four such shares represent one class A ordinary share. The company announced on Wednesday morning that it had increased the size of the deal; it had planned on offering 288 million shares.
At $14.69 a share, Didi’s valuation stood at $76.4 billion on a fully diluted basis.
SentinelOne
(S), the AI-powered cybersecurity platform, also began trading Wednesday. The stock kicked off at $46 and hit a high of $46.50. It recently traded at $42.10, up 20% from the offer price.
On Tuesday, SentinelOne collected $1.2 billion after selling 35 million shares at $35 each, above its expected price range. SentinelOne had filed to offer 32 million shares at $26 to $29 each, which it boosted to $31 to $32 a share on Monday.
Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and J.P. Morgan are the underwriters on the Didi offering.
Didi provides a smartphone app that lets users connect with vehicles and taxis for hire. Founded in 2012, it operates in nearly 4,000 cities, counties, and towns across 16 countries, its prospectus said. It had more than 493 million annual active users as of March 31.
At $4.4 billion, Didi is the year’s second biggest IPO. Coupang (CPNG), which collected about $4.6 billion in March, remains the year’s largest IPO, Dealogic said.
Chinese ride-hailing goliath Didi Global Inc. priced its IPO at $14 on Tuesday afternoon, according to people familiar with the matter, setting the stage for the company to begin trading Wednesday, after it made a lightning-fast pitch to potential investors.
The company sold more stock than it had planned, though the new deal size couldn’t immediately be learned. Given the upsizing, the pricing would give Didi a market capitalization of more than $67 billion, which would trail U.S. ride-hailing firm Uber Technologies Inc.’s roughly $95 billion but land well ahead of Lyft Inc., which sits at roughly $20 billion.
Didi’s fully diluted valuation, which typically includes restricted stock units, would easily eclipse $70 billion at the initial-public-offering price, confirming earlier reports by The Wall Street Journal.
Didi’s pricing comes just three business days after it launched its roadshow, making it one of the shortest investor pitches for an initial public offering in recent memory, according to bankers, investors and lawyers.
Didi ran its roadshow through round-the-clock virtual meetings because of time-zone differences, according to people who participated. Company executives focused on Didi’s scale and potential for continuing growth, the people said. The executives emphasized that 70% of China’s population will live in cities by 2030 and that few people own cars in those cities—and far fewer than in the U.S. Didi argues it is in position to capitalize on that, from shared mobility in general to its investments in electric vehicles and artificial intelligence.
He argued they’d be hard pressed to dupe him based on anything listed on the card: “What scam are you gonna run on me just by knowing my name and my birthday? Unless it’s that you sign up for free ice cream scoops on my birthday and don’t give them to me in which case, yes, that is very serious.”
But it’s not just his birthday that was listed. The card showed medically sensitive information, including his vaccine lot number, clinic location and the brand of vaccination received. And for some people, the card contains even more.
As the Covid vaccine rolls out to more people around the country, I’ve lost track of how many vaccine information cards I’ve seen across social networks and chat apps. While selfies are encouraged as a way to express joy at being vaccinated and broadcast that people are doing their part to help stop the spread of Covid-19, multiple government agencies have warned about the risks of posting vaccine card images online.
“Think of it this way — identity theft works like a puzzle, made up of pieces of personal information. You don’t want to give identity thieves the pieces they need to finish the picture,” the Federal Trade Commission said in a blog post last month. “Once identity thieves have the pieces they need, they can use the information to open new accounts in your name, claim your tax refund for themselves, and engage in other identity theft.”
Cybersecurity experts said they’re not aware of any widespread hacks or scams specific to vaccine cards — though the roots of identity theft are hard to uncover. But some also said these security threats would be easy to execute.
For now, it’s mostly “speculation but plausible,” according to Mark Ostrowski, head of engineering at cybersecurity company Check Point Software. “We will have hundreds of millions of people getting vaccinated. If cyberattack history repeats itself, these threat actors or scammers will try to find a way to take advantage of this situation.”
At the same time, there have been a number of Covid-19 scams, ranging from people pretending to be Covid-19 contact tracers to fake websites promising vaccine appointments.
Many of us (perhaps my editor included) may be desensitized to the risks given how much information we assume is already available online about us — either because we posted it ourselves, it’s been harvested from public data or because it was dumped as part of a previous security breach. But Rachel Tobac, an ethical hacker who specializes in social engineering, said one of the biggest concerns around the vaccine card trend is that the information is visible all in one place and easy to access.
“Posting an unedited vaccination card, unfortunately, makes it much easier for a criminal to target a specific person,” she said. In some cases, a person’s medical record number is listed on the card. “To gain access to sensitive medical records over the phone, having the medical record number, last name, and date of birth — all of which are listed on the vaccination card — are all I need to authenticate as that individual and gain access to sensitive details.”
A cybercriminal could attempt to impersonate you and call your healthcare company to learn about your medical history or diagnoses, cancel upcoming procedures, change prescription doses and more.
With or without the medical record number, she said, vaccine cards could also allow a hacker to conduct a phishing scheme to steal data and passwords. With the lot number of the vaccine you received or the location of the place where you got the shot, they’d be able to spoof the email address of that facility with a message about, for example, arecall urging you to click a link, supposedly to reschedule an updated dose but really intended to take information from you.
This doesn’t mean you should ignore any email you get about your vaccine, but it is a good reminder to be thoughtful about links you click with any email about any subject and to make sure the sender is who they say they are.
People who are in the public eye more, whether they’re influencers, celebrities or journalists like my editor, have a higher threat of this because criminals are more likely to target them. Stealing their free ice cream scoops on their birthday would be just the start of it.
“There are all kinds of issues related to potential identity theft,” said Michela Menting, a research director who specializes in cybersecurity at tech market advisory firm ABI Research. “Individuals should be as wary of posting vaccine records information as they would be about posting their credit card numbers online.”
My editor maintains he only posted his vaccine card online because it was shared privately to his followers, but security experts have long said the people most likely to commit identity theft are friends and family.
That’s not to say people should curb celebrating the vaccine on social media all together. More secure options include cropping out details on a card or opting for a selfie instead. Some vaccine sites are handing out stickers, much like the ones voters receive at Election Day polls. Snapping a photo while wearing the sticker gets the same message across without the security risk.
Netflix is testing a new feature that could prevent non-subscribers from piggybacking off of a friend’s or family member’s account and effectively stop people from sharing passwords for the streaming service.
The new feature is being tested among a small, random sample of customers worldwide. Selected users are being asked to confirm they either are — or live with — the account holder when they enter credentials to log in to the video streaming platform. A code is sent to the subscriber, which the user is then asked to provide. Test subjects also have the option to move past the prompt and verify the account later in order to continue streaming, or to create a new account.
“This test is designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so,” a Netflix spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch.
Currently, Netflix offers three different memberships — top-tier subscribers are permitted to share their accounts with up to three additional household members.
Netflix dominates Golden Globe nominations
01:49
A source familiar with Netflix’s test said that it doesn’t constitute a “crackdown,” but that the company is searching for “consumer-friendly ways to address password-sharing and protect members in the process.”
The streaming platform also wants to protect its hundreds of millions of members against unauthorized use of their accounts. “The only way to rein that in is testing our way into this type of verification,” the source said, adding that how Netflix may proceed remains “up in the air.”
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings previously touched on password sharing without indicating any plans to take action. “Password sharing is something you have to learn to live with,” he said in 2016. “There’s so much legitimate password sharing, like you sharing with your spouse, with your kids, so there’s no bright line, and we’re doing fine as is.”
Netflix has more than 200 million subscribers across the world and recently raised its prices as its popularity continued to grow during the coronavirus pandemic. Streaming plans cost between $9 and $18 per month.
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Netflix is looking to crack down on password sharing with a new test.
NETFLIX WON OVER HALF OF 2021 GOLDEN GLOBE TELEVISION AWARDS
First discovered by GammaWire, some users have encountered an inquiry when they log on asking for verification that they are the owner of the Netflix account. A warning message reads: “If you don’t live with the owner of this account, you need your own account to keep watching.”
A spokesperson for Netflix confirmed the test to FOX Business, noting it is “designed to help ensure that people using Netflix accounts are authorized to do so.”
It is also designed to ensure revenue is not lost as the streaming space has grown increasingly competitive. According to an analysis by research firm Parks Associates, password piracy and sharing cost streaming providers $9.1 billion in 2019 alone. The firm estimates that figure will rise to $12.5 billion by 2024.
Netflix will give users the option to verify their account through a code sent by text message or email. In addition, they will be given the option to “verify later.” If the user is unable to verify account ownership within a certain timeframe, they will be asked to create a new account.
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Netflix’s terms of service state that streaming content on the platform is “for your personal and non-commercial use only and may not be shared with individuals beyond your household.”
The company charges users $8.99-17.99 per month, depending on the plan. Netflix’s basic plan allows users to stream on one screen at a time, while its standard plan and premium plans allows users to stream on two screens at the same time and four screens at the same time, respectively.
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THE WALT DISNEY CO.
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The move comes as the streaming giant has become more popular than ever, surpassing 200 million subscribers.
The streaming service has previously looked the other way when it comes to password sharing, with Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledging during a call with analysts in 2016 that it is “something you have to learn to live with.”
“There’s so much legitimate password sharing, like you sharing with your spouse, with your kids, so there’s no bright line, and we’re doing fine as is,” Hastings said.
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But since those comments four years ago, Netflix has found more and more competition for viewers and dollars. In the last 24 months AppleTV+, Disney+, Discovery+ and HBOMax have all launched as pay streaming services. Just this week CBS All Access became Paramount+ and in a twist actually lowered its monthly price by $1 with the name change.
In 2019, Netflix’s chief product officer Gregory Peters told analysts during an earnings call that the company was focused on preventing password sharing, but that the platform was still looking for ways to enforce it.
Grab Holdings Inc. is in talks to go public through a merger with a SPAC that could value the Southeast Asian ride-hailing startup at as much as $40 billion, making it by far the largest such deal on record.
The Singapore company is discussing a deal with a special-purpose acquisition company affiliated with Altimeter Capital Management LP that would value it at between $35 billion and $40 billion, according to people familiar with the matter. (Altimeter has two SPACS; it couldn’t be learned which one is in talks with Grab.)
As part of the deal, Grab would raise between $3 billion and $4 billion in a so-called PIPE, a funding round that typically accompanies a SPAC merger, the people said. That amount could still change as Grab and Altimeter will start meeting with mutual funds and other potential investors soon, some of the people said.
The parties could announce the deal in the next few weeks, though the talks could still fall apart and Grab could revert to an earlier plan to stage a traditional initial public offering on a U.S. exchange this year.
Should they move forward with a SPAC deal, it would be the high-water mark in a recent explosion of such transactions, in which an empty shell raises money in an IPO with plans to later find one or more companies to merge with. In some cases, the SPAC ends up with only a small sliver of the newly public target.
The vehicles have caught fire in the last couple of years, with everyone from former baseball player Alex Rodriguez to ex-House Speaker Paul Ryan getting in on the action. They have helped break a bottleneck between the private and public markets as companies that were reluctant to go public line up to combine with SPACs, which offer in many cases a speedier route to a listing without costs and disclosure limitations that accompany traditional IPOs.
The biggest SPAC deal to date is United Wholesale Mortgage’s roughly $16 billion combination with Gores Holdings IV Inc., announced in September. The biggest one so far this year is electric-vehicle company Lucid Motors Inc.’s agreement last month to merge with Michael Klein’s
Churchill Capital Corp.
IV, a deal valued at nearly $12 billion, according to Dealogic.
So far this year, a record $70 billion-plus has been raised for SPACs, which account for more than 70% of all public stock sales, according to Dealogic. A slew of companies are in talks for a SPAC merger or already have agreed to one, including office-sharing firm WeWork, online photo-book maker Shutterfly Inc. and online lender Social Finance Inc.
In addition to ride-hailing, Grab, which traces its roots back to 2011, delivers restaurant, grocery and other items and provides digital financial services to merchants.
Its backers include
SoftBank Group Corp.
,
Uber Technologies Inc.
and
Toyota Motor Corp.
It was last publicly valued at around $15 billion in an October 2019 fundraising round, according to PitchBook.
Its valuation is on the rise as public investors pile into other ride-hailing and food-delivery companies. Uber’s shares have jumped sharply in the past several months, while
DoorDash Inc.
went public in December at a valuation far in excess of where it had raised money privately. The restaurant-delivery company now has a market capitalization of nearly $47 billion.
Altimeter’s SPACs—Altimeter Growth Corp. and Altimeter Growth Corp. 2—raised $450 million and $400 million in October and January IPOs, respectively. Altimeter Capital, of Menlo Park, Calif., has around $16 billion under management and primarily invests in technology companies.
The firm has racked up a string of successful investments and was one of the main participants in a January round of funding
Roblox Corp.
raised ahead of its IPO at $45 a share. In its debut Wednesday, shares of the videogame platform traded more than 50% above that level and continued rising Thursday.
SoftBank, which invested through its Vision Fund, is also poised to win big on Grab, just as another of its bets proves to be a gigantic winner: The Japanese technology-investing giant has now made roughly $25 billion on paper on its $2.7 billion investment in South Korean e-commerce company
Coupang Inc.,
which soared 41% in its trading debut Thursday.
Private companies are flooding to special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, to bypass the traditional IPO process and gain a public listing. WSJ explains why some critics say investing in these so-called blank-check companies isn’t worth the risk. Illustration: Zoë Soriano/WSJ
Write to Maureen Farrell at maureen.farrell@wsj.com
U.S. stock futures climbed Wednesday ahead of U.S. inflation data, suggesting that the major indexes will resume this month’s rally.
Futures tied to the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.3%. Contracts on the technology-heavy Nasdaq-100 also advanced 0.3%. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow closed lower on Tuesday after notching record highs earlier in the week.
Stocks have pushed higher this month, with the benchmark S&P 500 notching its eighth record close of the year on Monday. Investors are betting that President Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package will help bolster the economy while vaccinations help reduce Covid-19 fatalities. Investor sentiment has also been buoyed by companies’ quarterly results that have largely proved to be better than expected.
“As long as earnings estimates are going up, stocks are going up,” said Andrew Slimmon, a managing director and portfolio manager at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. “The magnitude of the earnings beats we have seen are so great because earnings have been way underestimated.”
Ahead of the opening bell, ride-hailing firm Lyft rose over 12% after posting a narrower annual loss, suggesting the company is moving toward profitability. Rival Uber Technologies is among the companies scheduled to release its results after the market closes. Uber rose more than 6% premarket.
The stalemate has prevented Democrats from taking control of key committees since the chamber is operating under the rules of the last Congress, when the GOP was in charge, delaying consideration of attorney general nominee Merrick Garland, who is expected to receive bipartisan support.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, rejected a Democratic request on Monday to schedule Garland’s confirmation hearing on February 8, arguing that the Senate needs to focus on the impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump, which is set to start the following day.
The South Carolina Republican said in a letter that a “one-day hearing” was “insufficient,” and noted that previous attorney general nominees received two-day hearings.
“When the Senate’s focus is required to consider whether to bar a former president from being reelected, other business must stop,” Graham wrote. “Proceeding with the confirmation of an attorney general and the impeachment of a former president at the same time would give neither the attention required.”
Until Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer strike an agreement, Graham will continue to determine the panel’s schedule rather than Illinois Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin. The party leaders could finalize a deal as soon as Tuesday; Graham said he guessed he’d be Judiciary committee chairman for “another day or two.”
The negotiations were held up for more than a week over a disagreement about whether or not Democrats had to promise in writing that they wouldn’t blow up the filibuster. McConnell said he was done holding up that process after moderate Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, said they had no plans to vote to eliminate the filibuster anytime soon.
McConnell declined Tuesday to comment on the topic. Durbin said that the party leaders are haggling over a final few points before finalizing the power-sharing agreement that will officially allow Democrats to take their chairmanships of key Senate committees. Democrats will hold a majority in the 50-50 Senate because Vice President Kamala Harris has the power to break tie votes in the chamber.
Durbin blamed McConnell for the holdup and said he has “several options” to schedule Garland’s hearing. He declined to provide details.
“I don’t like any of them,” he said. “I think February 8 is the best, fairest way to do it.”
“Sorry to say that Judge Merrick Garland, who is a wonderful man, is going to retire the trophy for bad behavior by the United States Senate,” he added, referring to how Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court was ignored by the GOP Senate majority in 2016.
Some Senate Republicans have indicated they would vote to confirm Garland, including McConnell, according to The New York Times.
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday he’s inclined to vote for Garland. He said he would support an “early” committee hearing and would “encourage” Graham to schedule one.
“I would support an early markup for Merrick Garland,” Cornyn said. “I think he’s not political, which is my number one criterion for the next attorney general.”
Graham said he also liked Garland.
“I’ll probably vote for him,” said the senator.
This story has been updated with additional developments Tuesday.
CNN’s Chandelis Duster and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.
Chrome 88 was released only last week, marking the release of the Manifest V3 extension API, changes to password management, and the official death of Adobe Flash support. Chrome 89 has now arrived in the Beta Channel, and it seems to be an even bigger release — even if many of its changes are hidden to most people. Let’s dive in!
Privacy Sandbox
Google first announced Privacy Sandbox all the way back in 2019, as the company’s planned replacement for third-party browser cookies. It’s still very much a work in progress, but Google aims for it to be “a secure environment for personalization that also protects user privacy.” Chrome 89 has the first pieces of the personalization interface, currently hidden behind a new flag: #privacy-sandbox-settings.
With the flag enabled, a new page for Privacy Sandbox can be found in Settings > Privacy and security > Privacy sandbox. There’s currently a single toggle, which enables ‘Web crowd and ad measurement.’ Google explained how this works in a recent blog post:
Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) [Privacy Sandbox] proposes a new way for businesses to reach people with relevant content and ads by clustering large groups of people with similar interests. This approach effectively hides individuals “in the crowd” and uses on-device processing to keep a person’s web history private on the browser.
By creating simulations based on the principles defined in Chrome’s FLoC proposal, Google’s ads teams have tested this privacy-first alternative to third-party cookies. Results indicate that when it comes to generating interest-based audiences, FLoC can provide an effective replacement signal for third-party cookies.
Google isn’t allowing sites to use Privacy Sandbox yet, but now we know where you’ll be able to manage its settings once the feature is finished.
Discover feed
Chrome 89 has a few changes to the Discover feed on the New Tab Page. Currently, articles in the Discover section are listed in cards, but in Chrome 89 they are only separated by dividers. The title font also seems to be slightly bigger, and perhaps most importantly, the description preview has been removed.
Chrome 88 (left) vs. Chrome 89 (right)
It’s interesting to see Google experiment with removing the teaser text. In most cases, they’re too short to provide any helpful context or added information, and removing them potentially allows more articles to appear on-screen at once.
Google is testing a new interface for the site info popup on Android, which appears when you press the ‘I’ or lock icon in the address bar. The popup normally shows the full address, information about page security, and a list of granted permissions. Chrome 89 includes a new flag (#page-info-discoverability) that updates the popup’s design.
Left: Old UI; Center, Right: New UI
The new popup fits in better with Google’s updated design language, and you can revoke permissions without opening Chrome’s normal settings panel.
Web NFC API
Google first began testing NFC in web apps with the release of Chrome 81. That version added initial support for the Web NFC API, allowing sites to read and write NFC tags. It’s mainly intended for inventory management, conferences, museum exhibits, and anywhere else NFC is frequently used. Starting with Chrome 89, the Web NFC API is enabled by default on Android.
Web NFC demo from Chrome Dev Summit 2019
The Web NFC API is limited to reading and writing NDEF data, so low-level operations like ISO-DEP, NFC-A/B, NFC-F are not supported. Peer-to-peer communication mode and Host-based Card Emulation (HCE) also won’t work. Unfortunately, that probably rules out any chances of someone creating an Amiibo creator web app.
Like with microphones, cameras, and other hardware features, NFC requires granting a permission from a popup. It will be interesting to see how the API will be used in the coming years.
Web Sharing on desktop
Chrome on Android has supported the Web Share and Web Share Target APIs for a while now, which allows web apps to send and receive data with Android’s native share menu. The features have gone a long way to blur the lines between native and web apps on Android, but annoyingly, they haven’t been available on desktop platforms (except with Safari on macOS)… until now.
Web sharing on Chrome OS 89
With the release of Chrome 89, web sharing (where web apps can open the system share dialog) is now available on Windows and Chrome OS, and web apps can function as a target on Chrome OS. Developers won’t have to add any extra code for the functionality to work on desktop platforms.
Other changes
As always, this update includes changes for both users and developers. Here are some smaller changes included in Chrome 89:
Chrome added support for text fragment links in 2019, which are links that automatically scroll to a certain string of text. Google Search started using them in 2020, and now websites can change how the highlighted portions look like with the new CSS ::target-text pseudo-element.
Chrome 89 can load AVIF content natively using AV1 decoders on Android and WebView.
The CSS property ‘list-style-type’ supports two new keywords: ‘disclosure-open’ and ‘disclosure-closed’.
The default value of CSS ‘display’ property for
Chrome now supports the CSS property ‘overflow:clip,’ which allows web pages to turn off any type of scrolling for a box. It uses less RAM than ‘overflow: hidden,’ which is often used for the same purpose.
Google has added a new cross-origin reporting API for sites to track usage across different web domains.
Sites can now detect if the current device is set to high contrast display mode, using the new forced-colors CSS media query (similar to how detection for dark mode works).
Some legacy prefixed events (webkitprerenderstart, webkitprerenderstop, webkitprerenderload, and webkitprerenderdomcontentloaded) have been removed.
Chrome now supports the ‘await’ keyword at the top level in JavaScript modules.
The chrome://media-internals page will be removed in Chrome 91, and Chrome 89 includes a new flag (#enable-media-internals) that toggles access to the page.
The new flag #enable-table-ng is available in Chrome 89, which enables the new Blink table layout engine, TableNG.
There’s a new flag for enabling “a rich bottom sheet” for installing Progressive Web Apps on Android, #mobile-pwa-install-use-bottom-sheet, but it doesn’t appear to do anything yet.
When you enter a website in the Chrome address bar, it currently adds “http://” to the front by default. Chrome 89 has a new flag (#omnibox-default-typed-navigations-to-https) that changes this behavior, and if the website doesn’t appear to support HTTPS, Chrome will fall back to the HTTP URL.
Chrome 89 has initial support for XFA forms in the PDF reader.
A new flag, #read-later-reminder-notification, adds a popup when an article in your reading list has been unread for a week.
The Web Serial API, which allows web apps to communicate with hardware over serial connections, is now enabled by default on Windows and Chrome OS. It was previously only enabled by default on Android.
The WebHID API allows sites to more easily use gamepads and other interface devices, and it’s enabled by default with Chrome 89.
Download
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing app. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take days, download and install it just like any other APK.
The Oregon Health Authority on Wednesday disclosed 731 new coronavirus cases and 20 more deaths as state officials announced they would stop providing detailed death summaries.
State officials throughout the pandemic divulged basic biographical information for each COVID-19 fatality, including a person’s age, county, location of death, date of a positive coronavirus test, date of death and general presence of underlying health conditions.
But without warning the agency announced that would end, effective Wednesday, because it had become too onerous for state epidemiologists who have been providing that information on a daily basis for 10 months.
The abrupt change comes as Gov. Kate Brown faces criticism for her decision to prioritize vaccinating teachers before seniors, who account for the vast majority of deaths in Oregon. Ending detailed death descriptions will make it difficult to know with precision how many elderly Oregonians test positive for coronavirus and subsequently die during the period when Brown allowed teachers to receive vaccines ahead of seniors.
The state on Wednesday instead unveiled a new data dashboard that includes summary details about the underlying health conditions of those who have died with COVID-19. That’s something the agency previously declined to disclose when requested five months ago by The Oregonian/OregonLive, saying the data wasn’t useful and created confusion when it had been previously released.
Robb Cowie, a spokesman for the Oregon Health Authority, said the decision to stop reporting detailed death information is “a capacity issue” for state officials and insisted the newly created data page, with a “composite picture, is ultimately more telling.”
On its last day of detailed reporting, Oregon disclosed the death of a 27-year-old woman from Hood River County with no underlying health conditions who died Jan. 23 at Oregon Health & Science University.
That level of detail will be whitewashed going forward. The death would be listed online as someone age 20 to 29, with no way to know the person’s county, gender, date of a positive coronavirus test, date of death, if the person died at home or in a hospital, or if the person had underlying health conditions.
Oregon will disclose deaths only in aggregate by age range, by county and by gender.
“Every death from COVID-19 represents a loss, especially for those who knew them best — families, friends and loved ones,” Patrick Allen, the Oregon Health Authority director, said in a statement. “That is why we have listed each case.”
Now the state will disclose aggregate fatality data plus a snapshot of underlying health conditions and symptoms among those who died, including the number of people who died in and outside of congregate care settings by date.
“This dashboard offers the public a clearer picture of the collective toll the virus has taken,” Allen said. “But it will never detract from the importance of each Oregonian who is no longer with us.”
It’s unclear how many states, if any, have provided detailed summaries about each death throughout the pandemic. Cowie said sharing that level of detail on a daily basis is time consuming and essentially required dedicating a full-time position to dig through an online database collecting the information for publication.
Amid record deaths in December and into January, state officials faced challenges providing timely information. They sometimes delayed releasing full summaries of the deaths until late at night as daily fatality counts reached the dozens.
Officials had been considering a change for months, when deaths were still in the hundreds, but opted to announce it in advance of the 2,000-fatality milestone.
State officials began providing detailed information with the first death March 14. Facing concerns about inadequate transparency on other coronavirus data, Gov. Kate Brown later that month said she instructed the health authority to “share all COVID-19 information with the public that does not compromise patient privacy.”
Asked for comment Wednesday about the health authority’s decision to stop sharing detailed death summaries, Brown’s office did not respond.
Where the new cases are by county: Baker (4), Benton (8), Clackamas (67), Clatsop (4), Columbia (8), Coos (9), Crook (7), Deschutes (24), Douglas (9), Harney (1), Hood River (5), Jackson (35), Jefferson (7), Josephine (16), Klamath (13), Lake (2), Lane (52), Lincoln (3), Linn (21), Malheur (17), Marion (115), Morrow (5), Multnomah (118), Polk (21), Tillamook (1), Umatilla (30), Union (3), Wasco (2), Washington (106) and Yamhill (18).
The prevalence of infections: The state reported 806 new positive tests out of 17,604 tests performed, equaling a 4.6% positivity rate.
Who got infected: New confirmed or presumed infections grew among the following age groups: 0-9 (36); 10-19 (82); 20-29 (153); 30-39 (101); 40-49 (125); 50-59 (90); 60-69 (61); 70-79 (37); 80 and older (24).
Who’s in the hospital: The state reported 302 Oregonians with confirmed coronavirus infections in the hospital Wednesday, six fewer than Tuesday. Of those, 74 coronavirus patients were in intensive care units, four more than Tuesday.
Vaccines: Oregon reported 340,369 doses of vaccine have been administered, or about 57% of the doses received. Oregon reported 14,896 newly administered doses, which includes 10,943 on Tuesday and the remainder from previous days.
Since it began: Oregon has reported 140,063 confirmed or presumed infections and 1,924 deaths, among the lowest per capita numbers in the nation. To date, the state has reported 3,122,704 lab reports from tests.
