Eighth Rappahannock resident dies due to COVID-19 as cases continue to fall

The state last week reported its most deaths in any week since March of 2021, as the winter surge last year was ending. The Virginia Department of Health said 92% of the deaths reported this week occurred in January.

In Rappahannock County, one more resident was reported dead due to COVID-19 last week, raising the total number of local deaths to 8 since the pandemic began in 2020.

Meanwhile, the number of new COVID-19 cases locally decreased significantly last week. In the week that ended Friday, 19 residents were infected, according to Virginia Department of Health data. That’s down from 35 last week and 36 the previous week. The total number of cases among county residents stands at 894 since the pandemic began in March 2020. 

Deaths have been a lagging indicator throughout the pandemic due to the natural delay between the onset of illness and death and the time required for the National Center of Health Statistics to review and assign appropriate codes to Virginia death certificates before they are sent back to the state. 

The health department reported 576 new COVID-related deaths last week statewide, the most since the week ending March 5, 2021. Over 16,700 Virginians have now died due to coronavirus. 

Meanwhile, new cases and hospitalizations continued to plunge, although case numbers remain well above levels they were at this time in 2021, as vaccinations were just being rolled out. 

Statewide, about 46,400 new cases were reported last week. The state's daily average of 6,631.3 cases is down 64.7% from the Jan. 13 peak.     

Hospitalizations for treatment of the virus fell sharply again this week for the second straight week. The Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association reported 2,521 patients hospitalized as of Friday, down 21% in the past week and 36% below the peak hospitalization on Jan 18 of nearly 4,000 patients.  

The health department's dashboard tracking the number of breakthrough infections shows that between Jan. 17, 2021, and Jan. 29 of this year 44,375 infections had been reported in fully vaccinated people in Northern Virginia, resulting in 103 deaths. 

Statewide, 139,224 such infections had been reported, or about 13.6% of the 1.02 million overall cases reported in that time.  The health department says the data show that unvaccinated people are 4.7 times more likely to develop COVID-19 than fully vaccinated individuals and are 4.2 times more likely to die from COVID-19.  

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The health department's vaccination dashboard shows that the average number of doses administered per day dropped again this week to about 8,000, at their lowest levels since vaccinations began in January 2021. Vaccinations were as high as 86,000 a day in late March. 

As of Friday, about 14.91 million vaccine doses had been administered to Virginians, and third doses had been administered to over 2.63 million Virginia residents. Over 277,000 children ages 5 to 11 have now received at least one dose, representing about 38.4% of that age group.  

Overall, 79% of all Virginians have now received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 70.1% are considered fully vaccinated.

In Rappahannock, 68.2% of residents have received at least one dose of a vaccine and 60.9% are considered fully vaccinated.

LATEST COVID-19 DATA

New Cases/Deaths (Seven days ending Friday, Feb. 4)

• Rappahannock County: 19 new cases (down from 35 prior week); 1 new death (up from 0 prior week)
• Statewide: 46,419 new cases (down from 73,890 prior week); 576 new deaths (up from 275 prior week)
• Statewide Testing: 174,057 PCR diagnostic test results (down from 214,557 prior week)     

Overall Totals

• Rappahannock County: 894 cases, 8 deaths 
• Statewide: 1,572,022 cases, 16,703 deaths
• Statewide Testing: 12.4 million PCR diagnostic tests (17.81 million when including antibody and antigen tests)  
• Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) cases: 138.

*Provided by Virginia Department of Health. The health department's COVID-19 data is updated each morning (Monday through Friday) by 10 a.m. and includes reports by local health agencies before 5 p.m. the previous day.

Statewide Hospital Data (as of Friday, Feb. 4):

• Hospitalizations: 2,521 (down from 3,197 on Jan. 28)
• Peak Hospitalizations: 3,948 reached Jan. 18, 2022
• Patients in ICU: 454 (down from 552 on Jan. 28)
• Patients Discharged: 93,232 (2,996 this week)

*Provided by Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association

For updated national and international COVID-19 data, visit the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard.

Editor's note: Rapp News is providing regular COVID-19 updates every week. For daily reports, visit the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard.