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Virginia March 23 COVID-19 update: 1,267 new cases, 10 new deaths; hospitalizations hovering around 1K patients

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia reported 1,267 new coronavirus cases and 10 new COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, with an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations.

Downward metric trends have stalled recently, with hospitalizations hovering above the 1,000 patient mark and cases also above 1,000 per day on average.


Deaths are down significantly however and the percent of tests coming back positive remains low overall (5.6 but around 9% in Hampton Roads.

Gov. Ralph Northam will probably address the stagnant numbers in an address at 2 p.m. Tuesday, but he’s also expected to loosen some restrictions.

Statewide numbers

New cases: (+1,267, 607,234 total), (1,442 per day on average, record is 6,166)
Case incidence rate: 16.9 per 100K people, down from 72 in late January
New deaths (+10, 10,137 total), major recent input of past death certificates into the state’s system over the past month, VDH recently reclassified some deaths after a review (10 per day 7-day average)
Current hospitalizations (+35 patients, 1,035 total), trending down overall
Testing (5.6% 7-day average of positive tests), trending down since early January, testing down (about 19K per day on average, was around 35K per day in January)
Doses administered (3,149,418 total doses, 48,513 per day on average, 1,142,467 fully vaccinated, 24.5% with at least one dose, 13.4% fully vaccinated
Doses distributed (3,510,925 total), 96.1% first doses administered and 79.4% second doses administered, Virginia’s first dose allotment for Pfizer and Moderna now roughly 195,000 per week, 100,000 Johnson & Johnson doses per week coming March 29

Nearly a quarter of Virginians now have one vaccine dose and areas of Virginia such as the Eastern Shore have already moved to phase 1c. All of Virginia is expected to move to 1c by mid-April, per Virginia vaccine coordinator Dr. Danny Avula, with availability to the general public by May. Avula says Virginia may do better than that May 1 availability goal set by President Joe Biden.

“I think we’ll be a week or two ahead of that in Virginia,” Avula said.

Avula confirmed Monday that Virginia is still set to get 100,000 or more Johnson & Johnson doses per week later this month in addition to the 200,000 or so first doses of Moderna and Pfizer. Those extra doses will be used to operate mass vaccination centers across the state.

To reach herd immunity, the state’s goal is getting 75% of the state population vaccinated, about five million people. 1,142,467 people are fully vaccinated as of Tuesday, VDH data shows.

For more information on the vaccine, visit WAVY’s vaccination page.

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