PENDLETON — Umatilla County reported two COVID-19 deaths Monday, Aug. 30, raising the county’s death toll this month to 19.

One of the victims was 21 years old, according to the county.

The latest disclosure puts the county two COVID-19 deaths shy of its all-time pandemic record for deaths reported in a single month. That record was set in July 2020, when the county became the epicenter of high infection rates in Oregon.

The newly reported deaths come as the latest surge in COVID-19 cases, driven by the highly infectious delta variant, continues to rock the county, state and the nation. The county on Aug. 30 reported 78 new cases.

The county’s 116th victim is a 21-year-old man who tested positive Aug. 17 and died Aug. 21 in his home. He had unspecified underlying health conditions. Aside from a newborn boy from Umatilla County who died in January, he is the county’s youngest COVID-19 victim.

Young people in Umatilla County are getting sicker and are being hospitalized more often amid the delta surge than at any other point in the pandemic, county health officials and hospital employees have said.

On Aug. 10, a 29-year-old Umatilla County woman with COVID-19 died. The week before that, the state reported a 35-year-old Morrow County woman and a 19-year-old Union County woman died after contracting the virus.

The county’s 117th victim is a 51-year-old woman who tested positive Aug. 11 and died Aug. 27 at Providence St. Mary Medical Center, Walla Walla. She had unspecified underlying health conditions.

Hospitals across Oregon over the past month have filled to the brim with COVID-19 patients, and Umatilla County hospitals also saw record numbers of residents admitted after testing positive this month. The vast majority of patients were not vaccinated against COVID-19, hospital spokespersons have said.

Roughly 42% of all Umatilla County residents have been vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Though cases have declined slightly from record-breaking levels two weeks ago, the county has reported more than 400 cases for five consecutive weeks, a total that dwarfs all previous pandemic surges.

In early July, the county was reporting less than 70 cases per week. For more than five months, the county reported at least 100 cases in a week just once.

Since the pandemic began, Umatilla County has reported 11,475 COVID-19 cases, according to county data. Roughly one in seven residents have tested positive.