These are the latest updates in Virginia regarding COVID-19 for Tuesday, April 7, 2020.
9:30 p.m. NASA Langley Research Center officials have confirmed an employee who previously tested positive for COVID-19 has died.
4 p.m. During a Virginia Beach City Council meeting Tuesday, Dr. Demetria Lindsay with the Virginia Beach Health Department said there have been 11 new cases of COVID-19 since the state health department posted the numbers Tuesday morning.
That means the city has a total of 211 cases as of Tuesday afternoon.
9 a.m. As of Tuesday, April 7, the Virginia Department of Health is reporting a total number of 3,333 confirmed COVID-19 cases.
The VDH also confirmed that 563 residents have now been hospitalized due to the virus along with 63 deaths.
Overall, 28,645 people in Virginia have been tested.
With 455 cases added to the 2,878 previously reported by VDH Monday, Virginia saw its biggest daily increase of confirmed COVID-19 cases so far.
Previously, the highest daily exchange of confirmed cases was between Friday, April 3 to Saturday, April 4 with almost 400 cases in one day.
This is also the first time the daily number of confirmed cases in Virginia surpassed the numbers in North Carolina.
With more testings being conducted, the number of confirmed cases is expected to keep rising. According to VDH, people between the ages of 50 and 59 show the highest numbers of confirmed cases with 660 as of Tuesday and covering 19.8% of the total number.
Virginia residents under the age of 50 cover almost half of the total numbers with people between the ages of 20 and 29 accounting for 12.4% all confirmed cases.
Here’s how Tuesday’s local cases compare to the day before (Monday, April 6).
Chesapeake: 80 (+3)
Surry: 3
Sussex: 5
Accomack: 11
Northampton: 2
Hampton: 43 (+2)
Norfolk: 72 (+12)
James City County: 119 (+1)
Newport News: 57 (+3)
Poquoson: 4 (+1)
Williamsburg: 14 (+1)
York: 25 (+4)
Portsmouth: 36 (+9)
Gloucester: 15 (+3)
Mathews: 2
Virginia Beach: 200 (+22)
Franklin: 4
IOW: 23
Southampton: 5
Suffolk: 30
5:30 a.m. Navy officials say a crew member of the USNS Comfort tested positive for the COVID-19 Monday.
A spokesperson said the person has been isolated on the ship while receiving treatment and that the individual has had no contact with patients.
This news come less than a day after New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo announced that he spoke with President Trump, who officially gave the go-ahead to start treating COVID-19 patients on the hospital ship.
The Institute for Health Metric and Evaluation (IHME) has moved Virginia’s peak outbreak of COVID-19 from late May to late April.
On its website, IHME said their projections are updated daily to account for new data and information. The models are based on observed death rates for the coronavirus and not influenced by testing.
The institute said these projections assume that full social distancing will be in affect through May.
At his press conference on Monday, April 6, Gov. Ralph Northam said they would not be changing the state’s plans based on this new projection and would instead continue to follow trends. Currently, Virginia’s stay-at-home order is in effect until June 10.
The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) released a new data dashboard on April 6. It details important information on the state of the commonwealth’s hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.
It shows up-to-date stats on those currently hospitalized due to COVID-19, hospital bed and ventilator capacity statewide, and how many hospitals are having trouble obtaining crucial personal protective equipment for medical workers.
The VHHA’s data on hospitalization is different than what is published by VDH. For example, as of April 7, VDH is only reporting 563 COVID-19 patients hospitalized in Virginia, whereas VHHA is reporting 589 hospitalizations.
Sentara Healthcare says it’s now processing COVID-19 tests in-house at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital to help shorten the wait for test results.
Sentara is using the Abbott m2000 RealTime system. Lab results are back within 24 to 48 hours, not the eight to 10 days that the private labs like LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics are taking due to unrelenting demand.
As 10 On Your Side reported, Sentara stopped medical screenings for COVID-19 because lab results from the private labs were taking too long,
“It’s extremely frustrating because at our core we want to take care of our clinicians and patients. We need to get the tests they need and get the results back as quickly as possible,” Young said.
The new in-house testing will help get those results far quicker.
The Virginia Department of Health (VDH) updates its website daily with the following COVID-19 data: The number of people tested in Virginia, the total number of confirmed cases, the number of people hospitalized and the number of deaths reported.
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