This is weekly update number 60 on the coronavirus in the DC area. This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) declined to 1,076 new cases. Last week it was 2,015 new cases (revised calculation). Eighteen weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases.
Europe seems to be slowly bring the spread of the virus under control. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, reported 3K new cases for yesterday, which is a notable improvement. The UK continues to contain the virus with 2K new cases reported yesterday. Its high was 68K new cases on 8 January. France has the fourth highest number of cases in the world (after U.S., India and Brazil). Their death count of 109,041 (population 67.4 million) is the eighth highest reported deaths in the world (behind U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico, UK, Italy and Russia). Still, it is less than the UK with 128,010 dead in a population of 66.8 million, Italy with 125,622 deaths in a population of 59.2 million or Belgium with 24,873 deaths out of a population of 11.6 million. These three countries have a higher reported mortality rate than the United States (591,035 deaths in a population of 331.7 million). Don’t know for certain if they are the only three countries with a higher mortality rate, but I think so. Yesterday they reported for France only 3K new cases. This is unusually low as they were reporting 10K cases two days earlier. The new case count yesterday for Spain is 5K, for Germany it is 3K and Russia remains permanently wedded to 8K new cases a week, as it has for weeks (not that I particularly trust the Russian figures and will blog about this soon). The U.S. (population 331.7 million), which has never gotten the virus under control, had 23K new cases yesterday, which is an improvement over last week. Our high was 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (no report, but very low), Japan (3,918), South Korea (699), Taiwan (539, which is their highest daily total), Vietnam (527, which is also their highest daily total), Singapore (30), Australia (17) and New Zealand (1 on 5/24/21).
All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of today, 11:20 AM: Johns Hopkins CSSE. This website has been recently revised and is worth looking at.
……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….48,634……48,822….1,131
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..…..15,279……15,284…….256
Alexandria VA……………160,530…….11,799……11,831…….137
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……76,717…..76,877….1,092
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.……….434………433……….9
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..……….557………560………19
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850…….27,817…..27,889…….278
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011…….45,197…..45,361……..500
Manassas…………………..41,641..…….4,302…….4,307………47
Manassas Park………….…17,307….…..1,218…….1,217………11
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960…….11,327……11,393………79
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144……..2,122…….2,133………24
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……70,686…..70,743….1,537
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……84,561…..84,876….1,500
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425….400,650…401,726….6,620
The Mortality Rate is 1.65%. There were 35 fatalities in the last week compared to 1,076 new cases or a weekly mortality rate of 3.25%. This is almost certainly caused by the lag in mortality compared to the declining number of cases. The population known to have been infected is 7.49% or one confirmed case for every 13 people. The actual rate of infection may be higher, perhaps as much as four times higher. I gather that the number vaccinated (at least one shot) at least 70% for this area and if we add to this the number previously infected we are looking at around 80% or more of the population partially protected.
The Virginia University Towns:
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. I do not report on places like William and Mary (W&M) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as they are located in or near major population centers. I gather that they have all emptied out now and gone home for the summer. Therefore, let us take a look at the stats for the area for a second.
UVA seemed to have the strictest and best covid control efforts. It shows:
Charlottesville (pop. 47K) with 4,011 cases and 57 deaths
Albemarle County (pop. 109K) with 5,787 cases and 83 deaths.
This comes out to 85 and 53 cases per thousand people and 1.21 and 0.76 deaths per thousand people.
To compare them to other areas:
Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) with 6,495 cases and 94 deaths
Rockingham County (pop. 81K) with 6,800 cases and 108 deaths.
This comes out to 120 and 84 cases per thousand people and 1.74 and 1.33 deaths per thousand people.
This is an indirect comparison of James Madison University policy and UVA policy, which was radically different, especially in the fall. One can see the difference in the figures of for the overall population.
To the south is Liberty U and Virginia Tech. Lynchburg (home of Liberty U.) did not fare well.
Lynchburg (pop. 82K) with 7,881 cases and 154 deaths.
For Lynchburg this comes out to 96 cases per thousand people and 1.88 deaths per thousand people. They have the highest death rate, leading me to suspect that the testing was less.
Montgomery County (pop. 99K) with 9,399 cases and 97 deaths.
For Montgomery Country this comes out to 95 cases per thousand people and 0.97 deaths per thousand people.
This was somewhat of a “laboratory-like” situation where you had four universities of 23K to 36K students located in rural areas of around 100K population. They did show different rates per capita in cases and in deaths.
Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had 654 new cases yesterday. Last week it as 378 cases. Seventeen weeks ago it was 4,707.
Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 2,136 cases (2,123 last week) and 10 deaths.
