Health experts urge Va. to keep up prevention
Measures are still necessary amid vaccine rollout
Just over 11,000 Virginians have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus a month after the state received its initial shipments.
In Virginia, where about 8.5 million people live, that number doesn’t come close to hitting 1% of the population.
About 167,000 of the roughly 482,000 vaccines Virginia has received have been given thus far, almost all to front-line health care workers, emergency medical technicians and nursing home residents and staff. The vast bulk of those injections were first doses in the two-part series. People who get immunized for COVID19 require two shots three or four weeks apart, depending on whether they received the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine.
At a news conference last week, Gov. Ralph Northam said vaccinators would have to speed up their efforts, and more supplies would need to be provided from manufacturers, to have any real impact on the pandemic.
“We can be faster, and we’re going to be fast,” he said.
Nearly 17% of standard nasal swab tests for the coronavirus came back positive over the past week in Virginia, a spike from about 13% one week prior.
As of Friday, there had been 321,172 confirmed cases statewide and 5,312 suspected deaths.
If the state’s pandemic continues on this trajectory, new weekly cases could peak at over 38,000 during the week of Valentine’s Day, according to an analysis by The University of Virginia
Biocomplexity Institute. The center is partnering with the Virginia Department of Health to offer data-based COVID-19 projections.
But the university researchers said the data won’t fully reflect the holiday impact until later this week. Right now their projections reflect a pause in case growth due to less testing activity over Christmas and New Year’s Day, but this effect on trends is likely temporary, they said.
Health experts caution these predictions are always changing with new information, and slight differences in people’s behavior can alter the course of the pandemic. Over the next several weeks, prevention efforts will have a much larger impact than vaccines or new variants of the virus. If Virginians wear masks, keep a distance of at least six feet from other people who aren’t part of their household and wash hands, they could slow the spread.
The statewide weekly incidence of the virus was 52 out of 100,000 people, Virginia public health officials said. The incidence rate, slightly lower than the nation’s 58 out of 100,000, is the frequency that a new illness occurs in a community over a period of time. That’s not to be confused with a measure of prev
alence, the proportion of people who have an illness in a set time frame, regardless of when they first developed the infection.
The United States’ case tally rose to 21.6 million last week with about 366,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. There have been 88.2 million cases and 1.9 million deaths worldwide.
From New Year’s Day to Friday, 53 people died in Hampton Roads. Among those killed were 12 in Virginia Beach; nine in Portsmouth; six each in Chesapeake and Norfolk; four each in Hampton and Suffolk; three each in Newport News and Accomack and Poquoson counties; two in Gloucester County; and one in Franklin.
During the week, Virginia Beach’s case counts shot up, with 2,334 newly confirmed positive. The next highest totals were found in Norfolk, 828, Chesapeake, 679, and Newport News, 650.
Case counts are expected to be higher in bigger cities, but some localities with fewer people saw much higher rates of new cases relative to their population sizes. Portsmouth and Accomack County tied for the highest rates in Hampton Roads, each having about 80 per 100,000 people. By comparison Virginia Beach’s was somewhat lower, at 74; Norfolk’s was 48.5, and Chesapeake’s was 40.
In the Eastern region, 77% of hospital beds are occupied, according to state health department data. That’s nearing the highest volume the region has seen throughout the pandemic — it reached 80% in late July. Emergency room visits for coronavirus-like symptoms have been on the rise for over two months, and intensive care unit hospitalizations have been generally increasing for the past 75 days.
Here’s a look at the pandemic around the region:
Chesapeake’s daily case average was 97, up from 77 a week ago.
Norfolk’s case average was 118, up from 88.
Virginia Beach’s case average was 333, up from 214.
Newport News’ case average was 93, up from 68.
Portsmouth reported 530 new cases last week, with a daily case average of 76, up from 56 the previous week.
Hampton reported 532 new cases, with a daily case average of 76, up from 44.
James City County reported 250 new cases, with a daily case average of 36, up from 30.
York County reported 238 new cases, with a daily case average of 34, up from 16.
Suffolk reported 352 new cases for the previous week, with a daily case average of 50, up from 37 a week ago.
Williamsburg reported 25 new cases, with a daily case average of four, up from one a week ago.
Williamsburg and Isle of Wight, James City, Mathews, Middlesex and York counties reported no deaths.