As I live and work in Northern Virginia, just a few miles outside of Washington, DC, the local situation is of interest to me, as I suspect it is to a few other readers. I will be maintaining these updates on Wednesdays for a while. Again, all the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website (which I gather is also maintained in the DC area), as of 11:32:28 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
The DC area is rather sprawling, with over 5 million people scattered across DC, Virginia and Maryland. Let me list the presence of virus by location. I list the number of cases from last week followed by the number of cases this week and then the current number of reported deaths. Population is the 2018 estimate from Wikipedia:
……………………….….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…………..702,445…..4,106……5,322….…..264
Arlington, VA…………..…..237,521….…912……1,169………..49
Alexandria VA………….…160,530………653………983…….…26
Fairfax County, VA……..1,150,795……3,448……4,834………201
Falls Church, VA……..…….14,772……….26………..36………….4
Fairfax City, VA……..………24,574……….27……….33…………2
Loudoun County, VA………406,850……..727………998……….24
Prince Williams C., VA….…468,011……1,449……2,223………33
Manassas…………………….41,641……..175………289……….1
Manassas Park………….…..17,307………..53……….96…….….2
Stafford Country, VA………149,960………221………308………..2
Fredericksburg, VA…….…..29,144……..….27……….45………..0
Montgomery C., MD….…1,052,567….…4,152……5,790..….333
Prince Georges C., MD….909,308………5,738……8,135…….311
Total……….…….…….…5,365,425……21,714…..30,261….1,252
The number of cases was doubling at every locale each week for the first three weeks I was tracking this. Week before last it only went by a little more than half (actually 58%). Last week it went up by half (actually 50%) and this week is went up less than half (actually 39%). So, a positive downward trend. although painfully slow.
The Mortality Rate for the area is 4.14%, which is high. It either means lots of vulnerable people, or the number of cases of infection are being significantly underreported. The population known to be infected is 0.56%. or one confirmed case for every 177 people. It may be that around 2% of the area has been infected.
From my observations, most people are doing a reasonable job of self isolating. Probably easier to do in this more spread out suburban area than in some cities. They do say that this area will become one of the next hotspots, but because it is spread out and primarily suburban, I don’t think it will be anything like New York. The fact that the rate of spread has been declining for three weeks is a positive sign.
The Washington DC statistic area according to some also includes Warren, Clarke, Fauquier, and Spotsylvania Counties in Virginia, Jefferson County in West Virginia, Frederick, Howard, Charles and Calvert Counties in Maryland. I rarely go to these places. Of interest to me is Albemarle County, VA with 110 confirmed cases (81 last week) and 4 deaths, and Charlottesville, VA which has 64 confirmed cases (51 last week) and 2 deaths. Montgomery County, VA has 61 cases (54 last week) and 1 death. These two areas are the home of UVA and Virginia Tech, two large universities located in a more rural environment.
