The number of COVID-19 cases in Virginia is better than it was a year ago, but the pace of improvement is slowing.Heading

The COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia is officially improved over this time, a year before the vaccine became available.

Due to the widespread use of delta variants and the relaxation of restrictions, the state’s new average daily number of cases has been higher than the same date in 2020 since early August. This week, it was below the 2020 figures, which had begun to rise rapidly towards the winter surge.

However, as the pace of improvement has slowed this year, it is unclear if the winter surge will reoccur.

As of Friday, the 7-day average of new coronavirus cases was 1,253, the lowest level since early August. This was down 12% last week and 53% last month, 2.7% below the November 5, 2020 average. The number of cases in early September was more than triple that of 2020.

In northern Virginia, the average number of cases per day fell below the previous year’s level on October 27, but this week it fell by another 6.9% to an average of 230.9 cases per day. This is 24.1% below the region’s average daily case load for this date in 2020.

Meanwhile, Virginia Hospital and the Healthcare Association reported that hospitalizations for the treatment of COVID-19 fell by another 12.8% last week to 923 patients as of Friday. Hospitalizations have fallen by nearly 60% from the peak of 2,211 patients in mid-September, and are now 13.3% below the same date last year.

The state reported 218 new COVID-related deaths this week. This is the lowest level in 7 weeks as the deaths associated with delta surges continue to decline slowly. However, death is a follow-up indicator as it often takes weeks to report and validate. Virginia has surpassed 14,000 COVID-related deaths this week since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Of the deaths reported this week, 17 were in northern Virginia. There were nine in Prince William County, seven in Fairfax, three in Falls Church, one in Alexandria, Arlington County, Manassas, and Manassas Park. The death toll in Fairfax County has decreased by six, as it has been clearly modified to reflect that the deceased actually lived in the city of Fairfax or Falls Church instead of the county.

The number of outbreaks underway in northern Virginia has also dropped significantly from 9 to 4 this week, with no new outbreaks previously unreported by the health sector. The only publicly reported outbreaks are in certain environments such as nursing homes, schools and day care centers. Outbreaks are defined as “in progress” until 14 days have passed and no new positive cases have been reported.

Health department dashboards tracking the number of breakthrough infections reported 12,115 infections in fully vaccinated people in northern Virginia between January 17 and October 30. It shows that 48 people have died. 50,144 such infections have been reported throughout the state, and only a small percentage of the nearly 490,000 overall cases reported during that time. According to data, unvaccinated people are 5.1 times more likely to develop COVID-19 and 4.9 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than fully vaccinated people, according to the Ministry of Health.

Of the Ministry of Health Vaccination dashboard Shows that the average number of doses per day increased to about 35,000 per day this week as the third dose became more readily available. That’s a level I haven’t seen since May. Vaccinations reached 86,000 a day in late March, but dropped to about 12,000 a day in midsummer.

As of Friday, more than 11.69 million vaccines have been given to Virginians, with 75.1% of the adult population and 63.1% of the total population fully vaccinated. The third dose was given to approximately 670,000 Virginia residents.

The Pfizer vaccine is currently approved for use in children aged 5 to 11 years, and these shots are currently available throughout the region.

The average positive rate of diagnostic COVID-19 testing in both the state as a whole and northern Virginia continues to decline, or the number of cases continues to decline steadily. Currently, the prevalence of all health districts in northern Virginia is less than 5%, experts generally indicate that the spread of the virus is suppressed, and the prevalence of the entire state has dropped to 5.6%. I think it is.

The total number of diagnostic test results reported by the health sector has exceeded 10 million this week, and well over 100,000 per week are still reported.

slowST COVID—19 data

New cases / deaths (7 days until Friday, November 5)

• Northern Virginia: 1,616 new cases (down from 1,736 last week). 17 new deaths (down from 19 last week)

• State-wide: 8,771 new cases (down from 10,016 last week). 218 new deaths (down from 239 last week)

• State-wide test: 114,811 PCR diagnostic test results (down from 135,513 last week)

Overall total

• Northern Virginia: 223,277 cases, 2,575 deaths

• State-wide: 933,542 cases, 14,125 dead

• State-wide testing: 10.04 million PCR diagnostic tests (14 million including antibody and antigen testing)

• Cases of Pediatric Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome (MIS-C): 105 (including 14 at Fairfax, 11 at Prince William, 2 at Loudon and Alexandria, 1 at Arlington). Two new cases were reported this week across the state.

* Provided by Virginia Department of Health.. The Health Department’s COVID-19 data is updated every morning (Monday to Friday) by 10 am and includes reports from local health agencies by 5 pm the day before.

State-wide hospital data (as of Friday, October 29):

• Hospitalization: 923 (decreased from 1,058 on October 29)

• Peak hospitalization: 3,209 reached January 13

• ICU patients: 237 (decreased from 301 on October 22)

• Discharged patients: 72,087 (722 this week)

* Provided by Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association

For updated national and international COVID-19 data, Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Dashboard..

Editor’s Note: InsideNoVa provides COVID-19 updates on a regular weekly basis. For daily reports, Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 Dashboard..