By Randy Arrington
LURAY, Feb. 26 — The Virginia Department of Health has reported 1,099 deaths related to COVID-19 in the past week. That represents 13.4 percent of all 8,197 pandemic deaths reported in Virginia since March 14, 2020.
On Friday, VDH reported a record-high 234 COVID-related deaths in a single day. For the last six days, the daily death toll has topped 100 after previously remaining below 40 for 10 consecutive days prior to the spike.
State health officials say the influx stems from the agency’s current processing of death certificates related to the post-holiday surge in cases.
While the Lord Fairfax Health District has only seen two new hospitalizations related to the virus since Monday, the health district has reported 38 COVID-related deaths in the last five days. Here’s how those fatalities breakdown across the district:
• 13 — Shenandoah County;
• 11 — Frederick County;
• 5 — City of Winchester;
• 3 — Clarke, Page and Warren counties (each).
Page County has reported a COVID death each of the last three days — it’s 43rd, 44th and 45th of the pandemic. However, the county has not reported a new hospitalization in eight days, and only a dozen new cases have surfaced over the past week.
Wednesday produced the highest case count of the week with five new cases being reported in the county. Seven of the 12 cases reported over the last week in Page County have surfaced in the Shenandoah area (22849), according to ZIP code data provided by VDH.
Page County’s seven-day positivity rate stands at 11 percent — the same as Thursday, but down from a recent-high of 12.1 percent on Wednesday.
As of Friday, 5,599 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine had been administered to residents of Page County, including 3,477 who had received at least one dose and 2,122 who had been fully vaccinated.
Statewide, nearly 1.8 million doses of the vaccine have been administered, with nearly 1.2 million receiving at least one dose (about 14 percent of Virginia’s population) and 587,990 people being fully vaccinated.
Daily counts of new cases of COVID-19 across the state have fallen below 2,000 for four of the last five days, after reaching a record-high of 9,914 cases on Jan. 17. Virginia’s seven-day positivity rate has dropped to 7.8 percent — the first time that rate has fallen below 8 percent since Nov. 30.
Statewide hospitalizations for COVID-19 continue to decline and are currently at 1,481, according to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association — a decrease of 190 from a week ago. Among those patients, 313 are being treated in intensive care units — steady over the past week. Among those, 187 are currently on ventilators — down 17 in the last seven days.
Currently, an average of 33,025 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine are being administered each day in Virginia.
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