Just doing my weekly update of this coronavirus post. The last three weeks have been encouraging as the number of cases has declined from around 8,000 to 9,000 new cases a week to around 7,000 new cases three weeks ago to near 5,000 cases two weeks ago and down near 3,000 new cases over this last week. So far, it does not look like a real negative impact from all the protests. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of 11:33:26 AM: 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…….9,474……9,847……..523
Arlington, VA……………..237,521……2,280…….2,372….….124
Alexandria VA……………160,530……2,125……..2,175..….…48
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795…..12,746…..13,153…..….429
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772………..56….…….58……..….7
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574.….…….69………..68….…….7
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850.…….3,180……3,458………80
Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011.…… 6,376……6,654…..…127
Manassas…………………..41,641….….1,262……1,320……….14
Manassas Park………….…17,307……….360…..….390…..…….6
Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……….831..……906………….5
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144………194………215….……..0
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567…..13,124….13,819…..….672
Prince Georges C., MD……909,308…..16,753….17,611….…..648
Total……….…….………..5,365,425.…..68,830….72,046..….2,690
The number of new cases the previous week dropped to 5,384 and this week down to 3,216 new cases. It was 9,301 new cases four weeks ago, 8,591 new cases three weeks ago, 7,094 new cases two weeks ago and 5,384 new cases last week. We shall see if it holds. This is a 5% increase since last week. The number of deaths increased this last week by less than a hundred.
The Mortality Rate for the area is 3.73%, 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 1.34%. or one confirmed case for every 74 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 293 confirmed cases (260 last week) and 8 deaths, and Charlottesville, VA which has 161 confirmed cases (142 last week) and 3 deaths. Montgomery County, VA is 97 cases this week (96 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 25 cases (25 last week) and 1 death.
Below are the case charts by day for DC, Maryland and Virginia (for the entire state in the case of Maryland and Virginia). They all show a positive pattern: