PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — While Virginia’s new daily COVID-19 numbers are staying steady, Hampton Roads is continuing to see record breaking numbers.
On Thursday, the region added 147 new cases, breaking a one-day record of 144 set on June 26. Those high numbers are not just spikes caused by lag in reporting, as cases have exceeded 100 for five of the past seven days. The Hampton Roads Planning District Commission tracks the cases locally in graphs, but they had not been updated at the time of publication.
The Virginia Department of Health’s graph of cases in the Eastern District, which includes Hampton Roads and the Eastern Shore, shows most of the new cases involve people who started showing symptoms just over a week ago, between June 22 and June 24. With an incubation period average of about 5 days before symptoms show, many cases were likely contracted around 2 weeks ago. A health expert with VDH explained this lag in reported cases from the time a person actually contracts the virus with WAVY on Wednesday.
Hampton Roads is now averaging more than 115 new cases daily, about 50 cases higher than earlier high points in the pandemic. Most of the new cases are coming in the Southside cities.
Norfolk saw a spike of 53 new cases reported Thursday, nearly 20 cases higher than its previous one-day record of 34 set just three days ago. Its percent of positive cases is back up to nearly 9%, a number not seen since May 24 when the city was testing about 100 people less per day on average.
Nearly 40% of Norfolk’s cases involve people under the age of 30, and Black and Latino people account for 80% of Norfolk’s overall cases.
Meanwhile Chesapeake and Virginia Beach keep seeing high numbers, but their percent of positive tests are staying low, at 5.8% and 3.6% respectively.
All local health districts are seeing about 30-40% of cases in people under the age of 30, with the exception of the Eastern Shore and Western Tidewater (Suffolk, Franklin, etc.).
To see these numbers, go to VDH’s website and click the locality and testing tabs.
Here’s the latest count for Hampton Roads and the whole Tidewater region (numbers are cumulative)
Accomack: 1,042 cases, 72 hospitalized, 14 deaths (-1 case)
Chesapeake: 959 cases, 140 hospitalized, 21 deaths (+34 cases, +3 hospitalized, +1 death)
Franklin: 51 cases, 4 hospitalized, 2 death (+1 case)
Gloucester: 49 cases, 9 hospitalized, 1 death
Hampton: 339 cases, 41 hospitalized, 5 deaths (+3 cases)
Isle of Wight: 181 cases, 16 hospitalized, 8 deaths
James City County: 268 cases, 58 hospitalized, 15 deaths (+3 cases)
Mathews: 6 cases, 2 hospitalized, 0 deaths
Newport News: 541 cases, 45 hospitalized, 10 deaths (+6 cases, +1 hospitalized)
Norfolk: 987 cases, 108 hospitalized, 11 deaths (+53 cases, +1 hospitalized, +2 deaths)
Northampton: 271 cases 40 hospitalized, 28 deaths (+2 cases)
Poquoson: 19 cases, 2 hospitalized, 0 death
Portsmouth: 513 cases, 71 hospitalized, 18 deaths (+16 cases, +2 hospitalized, +2 deaths)
Southampton: 160 cases, 8 hospitalized, 6 deaths (+3 cases, +1 death)
Suffolk: 425 cases, 60 hospitalized, 36 deaths (+5 cases, +1 hospitalized, +1 death)
Virginia Beach: 1,225 cases, 121 hospitalized, 30 deaths (+22 cases, +2 hospitalized, +1 death)
Williamsburg: 61 cases, 12 hospitalized, 6 deaths
York: 116 cases, 10 hospitalized, 3 deaths (+1 case)
Key figures locally
- 149 new cases (147 in Hampton Roads) — a one day high, average now more than 115 per day
- 8 new deaths (well above 7-day average of 2 per day, highest in a day since June 9)
Statewide numbers:
- New cases: (+ 532, 63,735 total) — just below 7-day average, which has been around 500 for more than two weeks
- New deaths (+30, 1, 816 total) — Reported deaths above 20 last three days, but “deaths by day of death,” which shows the actual day a COVID-19 patient died, has remained around 6 per day for more than two weeks and deaths are overall trending down.
- Hospitalizations (-4, 888 total) — 7-day average around 900 for past two weeks, 700-plus below peak
- Testing (percent of positive tests has remained around 6% for about two weeks), +15,602 tests, 671,560 overall — average of tests below 10,000 per day (9,970)
The United States reported a record 52,789 new cases on Wednesday, per data from Johns Hopkins University, more than the total number of cases for the first two months of the United States’ outbreak combined.
At least 2,691,000 cases of coronavirus have been reported in the country since February, according to Johns Hopkins University. At least 125,000 people have died.
This article will be updated. For more from the Virginia Department of Health click here.