Va. COVID-19 positivity rate falls to 5.7%

Larger number of deaths due to backlog in reporting

Published September 21, 2020 by Kate Andrews

The Virginia Department of Health reported 6,567 new COVID-19 cases last week and an increase of 278 deaths from the virus — a larger number than most weeks because of a backlog of death data that was entered since last Tuesday, VDH said. The state now has 141,138 cases and 3,021 fatalities, as of Sept. 21.

The state’s positivity rate is 5.7%, a significant decrease since Sept. 14, when it was 7.2%. Virginia recorded its first COVID-related death in a patient younger than 19 last week, an adolescent from the Southside Health District, which covers Brunswick, Halifax and Mecklenburg counties.

The nation’s COVID-19 death toll approached 200,000 this week, more than 60,000 above Brazil, which has the next highest fatality rate in the world.

Several Virginia universities are reporting COVID-19 rates among students, faculty and staff members, although the universities are using different methods. Some are reporting daily, while others are providing weekly updates. James Madison University closed its campus in early September due to a high number of new cases and plans to reopen in October. Here are the most current university stats:

James Madison University: 821 total self-reported positive cases (since Aug. 17); 613 positive tests reported by health center (since July 1), with a total of 1,434 cases. The overall positivity rate of tests at the university health center (since July 1) is 24.9% as of Sept. 21.
Virginia Tech: 841 positive tests since Aug. 3, with 130 new cases from Sept. 14 to Sept. 20. The seven-day moving average positivity rate as of Sept. 20 is 18.57%.
University of Virginia: 490 positive cases among students and employees reported from Aug. 17 to Sept. 18. The university recorded 121 new cases from Sept. 14-19, according to its tracker.
Virginia Commonwealth University: 231 student cases and 24 employee cases as of Sept. 21. According to prevalence testing, the positivity rate is 0.7% as of Sept. 21.
Old Dominion University: 59 positive cases out of 2,122 tests performed as of Sept. 21.
George Mason University: 40 positive cases among students and employees between July 30 and Sept. 17.
Radford University: 397 total positive cases among students and employees as of Sept. 14, with 40 new cases since Sept. 7. Overall positivity rate is 11.39% as of Sept. 14. The dashboard is updated each Tuesday.

Meanwhile, some regions around the state still report relatively high coronavirus rates, although many hotspots have seen declines in the last few weeks.

Here are the health districts with higher than 10% positivity rates as of Sept. 21:

Pittsylvania-Danville: 10.3% (up from 9.9% Sept. 14)
Portsmouth: 11.7% (up from 9.4%)
Western Tidewater (Isle of Wight and Southampton counties and the cities of Franklin and Suffolk): 10.4% (down from 11.0%)

These are the 10 Virginia localities that have seen the most cases in the state, as of Sept. 21:

Fairfax County: 20,305
Prince William County: 12,122
Loudoun County: 6,678
Virginia Beach: 6,656
Chesterfield County: 5,797
Henrico County: 5,295
Norfolk: 4,745
Richmond: 4,516
Chesapeake: 4,212
Arlington County: 3,851

Globally, there are 31.1 million reported COVID-19 cases and 961,656 confirmed deaths as of Sept. 21. The United States, which has the most confirmed cases and deaths worldwide, has seen 6.81 million confirmed cases so far, with 199,606 deaths attributed to the coronavirus since February.

Below is the latest data from VDH: