Hospitalized rates high; new cases remain flat

The local growth rate of new COVID cases has slowed to a crawl, with no additional deaths in several days.

But the number of local residents hospitalized with COVID complications remains high.

In Wise County, the total number of cases since spring 2020 increased by two, from 10,237 last Thursday to 10,239 yesterday.

There were 308 county residents hospitalized with COVID as of Monday.
The county’s total number of deaths associated with COVID-19 remained at 194.

The health department’s cumulative positive case count for Norton increased by one, from 1,304 Thursday to 1,305 Monday.

There were 40 city residents hospitalized with COVID as of yesterday.
The number of total deaths in the city remained at 22.

Statewide, the total number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began rose from 1,196,249 Thursday to 1,199,293 yesterday, an increase of 3,044.

However, the number of cases deemed “probable” was revised downward yet again, from 472,642 Thursday to 472,130 yesterday.

The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Virginia increased by 31 to 16,431.

But the number of probable COVID-19 deaths was revised downward, from 3,292 Thursday to 3,289 Monday.

REPORTING CHANGE

The health department announced March 10 that it had made several changes to its COVID-19 reporting dashboards.

“The changes are intended to streamline the information that is most helpful in tracking COVID-19 and its impacts on Virginia at this point in the pandemic,” according to the department.

Acting state health Commissioner Dr. Colin M. Greene said, “With COVID-19 cases continuing to decline, and many communities relaxing restrictions, we are consolidating and focusing on the metrics that matter the most in this new phase of the pandemic.”

Among the notable changes was elimination of a dashboard that provided easily accessible COVID numbers specific to each county and city. Now, the dataset including that information is available on the Virginia Open Data Portal and will be updated Monday through Friday.