Coronavirus in the DC area – update 13

Another weekly update of this coronavirus post. The last four weeks have been encouraging as the number of cases has declined from around 8,000 to 9,500 new cases a week to near 5,400 new cases four weeks ago to near 3,200 cases three weeks ago and down near 2,600 new cases two weeks ago. Over this last week there were 2,406 new cases. This decline occurred during the protests. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 7:33:53 PM: 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……10,128……10,365……..553
Arlington, VA……………..237,521……..2,438……..2,484…….132
Alexandria VA……………160,530………2.258….…2,325………57
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…….13,588…..13,864.……488
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772…..….….57…….…52…………8
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.…………69………..70…….….7
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850.……..3,683…….4,047…..…87
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011.…… .7,038…….7,331…….144
Manassas…………………..41,641….….1,370…….1,414……..18
Manassas Park………….…17,307…….….416…….…430………6
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960…………949………990………5
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144……..…235………249………0
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…….14,283…..14,803……739
Prince Georges C., MD……909,308……18,151..…18,645……686
Total……….…….………..5,365,425.……74,663…..77,069…2,930

The number of new cases dropped to 5,384 four weeks ago down to 3,216 new cases three weeks ago, down to 2,617 new cases two weeks ago and was 2,406 new cases this last week (measured from my previous Wednesday posting to this Wednesday posting). It was 9,301 new cases seven weeks ago, 8,591 new cases six weeks ago, 7,094 new cases five weeks ago and 5,384 new cases four weeks ago. Keep in mind a number of states are currently running 4,000 to 6,000 new cases a day! This is a 3% increase since last week.

The Mortality Rate for the area is 3.80%, 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 1.44% or one confirmed case for every 70 people. It may be that over 2% of the area has been infected.

The Washington DC statistical 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 and they were not listed in the Governor of Virginia’s order extending the lock-down in Northern Virginia.

Of interest to me is Albemarle County, VA with 407 confirmed cases (359 last week) and 9 deaths, and Charlottesville, VA which has 216 confirmed cases (182 last week) and 4 deaths. Montgomery County, VA is 147 cases this week (116 last week) and 2 deaths. Of course, who knows what will happen if you bring in tens of thousands of students in the fall. These two areas are the home of UVA and Virginia Tech, two large universities located in a more rural environment. Dare County, North Carolina, a beach area, has 59 cases (31 last week) and 1 death.