By Randy Arrington
LURAY, May 1 — Shenandoah County is proving to be the new “hot spot” in the Lord Fairfax Health District with 41 new reported cases of COVID-19 in the past three days.
The Virginia Department of Health has reported 12 hospitalizations and two deaths related to the virus in Shenandoah County, which now leads the health district in total reported cases at 120.
Page County saw four new cases surface in Friday morning’s report to bring the total to 104. There have been 11 hospitalizations among those in Page County who tested positive for COVID-19, and only one related death reported by VDH as of Friday.
Overall, the health district reported 36 new cases on Friday, with most concentrated in Shenandoah (12) and Frederick (10) counties. However, there was only one new hospitalization across the five-county district. A breakdown of total cases by jurisdiction (as of Friday morning) is as follows (hospitalizations – deaths):
- 120 — Shenandoah County (12-2)
- 115 — Frederick County (13-1)
- 104 — Page County (11-1)
- 57 — Warren County (4-0)
- 41 — City of Winchester (1-0)
- 9 — Clarke County (1-0)
The City of Harrisonburg has gained 30 news cases of COVID-19 for a total of 456, with 42 hospitalized and 11 related deaths. Rockingham County now has a total of 249 reported cases after gaining nine overnight. Rockingham has seen 15 hospitalized from the virus and reported only one related death.
The biggest jump in Friday’s report by VDH was in statewide testing, where the total of 105,648 showed a one-day increase of 14,805. Governor Ralph Northam has stated that he wanted testing for COVID-19 to reach a level of 10,000 per day as one criteria for reopening the state for business. His mandated closure of non-essential businesses ends May 8. The previous one-day high for testing in Virginia was 5,536 — set on the previous day.
New reported cases of COVID-19 in Virginia rose by 1,055 on Friday, for a total of 16,901. On April 15, there were 6,500 reported cases statewide. Virginia has averaged 790 new cases per day since Monday.
Hospitalizations related to the virus have increased by an average of 84 per day statewide since April 12. According to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, there are currently 1,431 patients in state hospitals that have either been confirmed to have COVID-19 or are awaiting test results. Among those, 366 are in intensive care and 193 are on ventilators. Those numbers have slowly declined over the past week.
The VHHA also reports that since the first case was reported in Prince William County on March 7, there have been 2,196 confirmed COVID-19 hospitalized patients who have been treated and discharged.
VDH believes that the first illnesses in the state related to COVID-19 could have begun in mid-February.
While the number of new reported cases seems to be stabilizing (although remaining steady), the number of COVID-19 related deaths continues to rise at a steady pace in Virginia. There have been a total of 581 deaths statewide related to the virus, with 29 reported overnight and 123 in the last four days (21.2 percent of total).
A breakdown of total cases by jurisdiction among Virginia’s most active outbreaks of COVID-19 are as follows (hospitalizations – deaths):
- 3,897 — Fairfax County (643-137)
- 1,781 — Prince William County (174-28)
- 1,004 — Arlington County (168-42)
- 898 — Henrico County (129-102)
- 832 — Loudoun County (93-15)
- 802 — Alexandria (104-24)
- 557 — Chesterfield County (50-24)
- 396 — Virginia Beach (81-14)
- 364 — City of Richmond (66-15)
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