Well, I have been providing updates for the DC area for a year now. I originally started tracking and discussing the virus back in January 2020. And then, as everyone else finally picked up that this was going to be a problem and started reporting on it, I decided in April to focus on local tracking. Because of the geographic nature of the DC area (parts of Virginia, parts of Maryland and DC), I could not find a nice summary for the area. It also personally affects me (and which is why I am reporting on university towns in Virginia and beach areas in North Carolina).
Anyhow, here is my original post on the virus: Plague? | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
And here is my original DC area post from a year ago: Coronavirus in the DC area | Mystics & Statistics (dupuyinstitute.org)
Back then (1 April 2020) we were looking at 1,941 reported cases and 23 reported deaths. Now we are up to 371,256 reported cases and 6,250 reported deaths. It has not been well handled.
Back to the present, the number of cases from coronavirus is higher than it was last week. This is weekly update number 52 on the coronavirus in the DC area.
This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) increased by 6,914 new cases. There were 4,811 new cases last week. Ten weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases. Twenty-one weeks ago there were only 4,256 new cases.
Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, is still struggling with 16K new cases reported for yesterday. The UK is actually bringing it under control with 4K yesterday, the same as last week. Its high was 68K new cases on 8 January. France now has reported more cases of Coronavirus than the UK. Their death count of 95,495 (population 67.4 million) is the seventh highest reported deaths in the world (behind U.S., Brazil, India, UK, Italy and Russia). Still, it is less than the UK with 126,955 dead in a population of 66.8 million or Italy with 108,879 deaths in a population of 60.3 million. Yesterday they reported for France (31K), Spain (5K), Germany (24K) and Russia (8K). The U.S. (population 331.4 million), which has never gotten the virus under control, had 61K new cases yesterday. This is higher than the last the last four weeks (53K, 54K, 55K and 57K) but an improvement from the high of 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (18 cases), Japan (2,141), South Korea (506), Taiwan (1), Vietnam (3 on 3/29), Singapore (26), Australia (8) and New Zealand (2).
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 cases thirty-nine weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:25 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….43,488…..44,513…….1,064
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..….13,915……14,227……….246
Alexandria VA……………160,530……10,784……10,940.,…….128
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.…..70,096……71,411…….1,040
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.………378………386……..……9
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..………509…..…..522……..…18
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850……24,659……25,251…..….269
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011……41,153……41,934………468
Manassas…………………..41,641..…….4,120……..4,159……,…45
Manassas Park………….…17,307….…..1,153……..1,169…….…12
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……..9,970……10,150………..69
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144…….1,844……..1,879…….…22
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……65,686……66,704…..1,472
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……76,587……78,011…..1,388
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..364,342….371,256.…6,250
This is a 2% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area is 1.68%. This last week there were 53 new fatalities reported out of 6,914 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 0.77%. The population known to have been infected is 6.92% or one confirmed case for every 14 people. The actual rate of infection may be higher, perhaps as much as four times higher. I don’t have a good report of how many people have been vaccinated in this DC area, but I gather at least 20% have had their first shot. So we are looking at 40-50% of the DC area having either been infected or vaccinated.
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. Liberty University (LU) at Lynchburg and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions at the beginning of February. I do not report on places like William and Mary (W&M) and VCU as they are located in or near major population centers.
Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 6,166 cases (5,961 last week) and 95 deaths (up 24 in the last five weeks), while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 6,347 cases (6,187 last week) and 103 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.
Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has reported 3,834 cases (3,771 last week) and 53 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has reported 5,275 cases (5,176 last week) and 77 deaths (up 29 in the last five weeks). This is where UVA is located.
For UVA (https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker), after peaking at 229 new cases on 2/16, they had imposed new restrictions. The number of cases dropped precipitously and they partially eased up the restrictions. This Monday (3/29) there were 9 new cases. It does show what can be done with quick reaction and actual lock-down procedures.
Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has reported 7,196 cases (7,056 last week) cases and 140 deaths (80 deaths these in the last ten weeks).
Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has reported 8,780 cases (8,642 last week) and 86 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.
I do report the population, number of cases and number of deaths for each of these areas. This is because this is somewhat of a “laboratory-like” situation where you have four universities of 23K to 36K students located in rural areas of around 100K population. They do have different rates per capita in cases and in deaths.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 1,432 new cases yesterday. Last week it as 1,267 cases. Nine weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.
Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 1,987 cases (1,948 last week) and 8 deaths.
