Coronavirus in the DC area – update 29

Weekly update number 29 on the coronavirus in the DC area, meaning I have been doing this post for over half a year. As it is “close to home,” I sort of feel a need to keep doing it. Not sure how many people are following this, but I kind of want to know.

This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 4,012 new cases. Last week there were 3,784 new cases. So back on the rise again. So we had two weeks of less than 3,000 cases a week and now it has gone back up.

In contrast, Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is reporting 11K new cases for the day yesterday. They are now reporting twice as many cases per day as they were reporting with the initial infection they were dealing with in late March. It is an amazing collapse of control from what they had:

Still, as bad as it is in Italy, it is not as bad as the UK (21K cases yesterday), France (21K) or Spain (14K). The U.S., which has never gotten the virus under control, had 60K new cases yesterday.

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 sixteen weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 12:24 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….16,068….16,498………642
Arlington, VA……………..237,521……..4,228……4,437………152
Alexandria VA……………160,530……..4,045…….4,144……….75
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795……22,185…..22,849……..604
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…………75………..75……..…7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.……….144………157………..8
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850..….…7,303……7,634……..130
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011..……13,281….13,735……..222
Manassas…………………..41,641…..….1,998……2,018………27
Manassas Park………….…17,307..….……627….…..634……….8
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….2,174……2,287………20
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144.…….….568………576………..6
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…….23,817….24,664……862
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308…….30,878….31,695……848
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..127,391..131,403….3,611

This is a 3% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 2.75%, which is high, but has been steadily declining. The population known to have been infected is 2.45% or one confirmed case for every 41 people. Even if the actual infection rate is four times or more higher, this is a long way from “herd immunity.”

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg.

Harrisonburg, VA is reporting 2,945 cases (2,864 last week) and 35 deaths, while Rockingham County, where the town resides, is reporting 1,701 cases (1,640 last week) and 26 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA has 1,536 confirmed cases (1,467 last week) and 32 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA, where the town resides, has 1,501 confirmed cases (1,443 last week) and 23 deaths. This is where UVA is located. UVA had a covid tracker which is worth looking at: https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker. They had been having a growth in cases since they reopened, but put in new regulations and restrictions these last weeks, so the number of new cases has declined and stayed down. So far, they have been doing a decent job at containing this.

Further south, Montgomery County, VA has 2,565 cases this week (2,381 last week) and 5 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million)  is still running around 1,000 cases a day (910 yesterday). This has been the case for months. It does not seem to want to establish a steady downward trend, but at least it is not going up.

Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area in the outer banks, has had 341 cases (309 last week) and 3 deaths. With summer over, not sure why this continues to grow.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.

Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.

His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) and The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019)

Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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