New case numbers remain low

The local growth rate of new COVID cases remains exceptionally small.

In Wise County, the total number of cases since spring 2020 increased by four, from 10,244 last Thursday to 10,248 yesterday.
The county’s total number of deaths associated with COVID-19 increased by one, from 194 to 195.

The health department’s cumulative positive case count for Norton was revised down by two, from 1,305 to 1,303. The reason was not immediately clear.

The number of total deaths in the city remained at 22.

Statewide, the total number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began rose from 1,202,216 Thursday to 1,204,851 yesterday, an increase of 2,635. The number of cases deemed “probable” rose from 472,344 Thursday to 473,364 yesterday, an increase of 1,020.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in Virginia increased by 48 to 16,582. The number of probable COVID-19 deaths increased by 13 to 3,302.

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.