Coronavirus in the DC area – weekly update 57

Colorized picture from California, 1918. Source: reddit

This is weekly update number 57 on the coronavirus in the DC area. This week the D.C area (pop. 5.4 million) decreased to 3,676 new cases. There were 4,620 new cases last week. Fifteen weeks ago it was 18,934 new cases.

Almost all of Europe is still struggling with controlling the spread of the disease. Italy (pop. 60.3 million), the original epicenter of the European outbreak, reported 9K new cases for yesterday. The UK has brought it under control with 2K new cases yesterday. Its high was 68K new cases on 8 January. France now has reported more cases of Coronavirus than the UK or Russia, making them the fourth highest in the world (after U.S., India and Brazil). Their death count of 105,792 (population 67.4 million) is the eighth highest reported deaths in the world (behind U.S., Brazil, India, Mexico, UK, Italy and Russia). Still, it is less than the UK with 127,830 dead in a population of 66.8 million or Italy with 122,005 deaths in a population of 60.3 million. Yesterday they reported for France 24K new casesThey are only very slowly getting control of the situation. The new case count for Spain is 16K for 5/03, for Germany it is 24K and Russia remains at 8K (not that I particularly trust the Russian figures). The U.S. (population 331.4 million), which has never gotten the virus under control, had 41K new cases yesterday, which is an improvement over last week. Our high was 300K new cases on 2 January. This is in contrast to places like China (19 cases on 5/03), Japan (4,197), South Korea (676), Taiwan (8), Vietnam (10), Singapore (17), Australia (15) and New Zealand (6).

The number of reported cases in the DC area was hovering around 8,000 to 9,500 a week for several months, then declined to a low of 2,406 cases forty-four weeks ago. It has since increased. All the data is from the Johns Hopkin’s website as of today, 2:20 PM: Johns Hopkins CSSE

……………………..….Population…last week…this week…Deaths
Washington D.C…….…..702,445…….47,533……48,041…….1,104
Arlington, VA……………..237,521..….15,020……15,156…….…252
Alexandria VA……………160,530…….11,595……11,700……….133
Fairfax County, VA…….1,150,795.……75,478……76,144…….1,070
Falls Church, VA…………..14,772.………423…………425…………8
Fairfax City, VA……..…..…24,574..………544…………552……….19
Loudoun County, VA….…406,850……27,159…….27,483……..274

Prince Williams C., VA…..468,011…….44,414……44,806………479
Manassas…………………..41,641..……..4,297……..4,289………..47
Manassas Park………….…17,307….……1,195……..1,215……….12

Stafford Country, VA……..149,960……10,979…….11,155……….74
Fredericksburg, VA…………29,144…….2,054………2,109……….22
Montgomery C., MD…….1,052,567……69,624……70,075……1,521
Prince Georges C., MD.…..909,308……82,663……83,504……1,442
Total……….…….….……..5,365,425…..392,978…396,654……..6,457

 

This is a 1% increase since last week. The Mortality Rate for the area last week was 1.64%. Due to technical difficulties I was unable to get the death counts for any locale this week except for DC (which is up to 1,019). Therefore last weeks deaths are still reported. Last week there were 52 new fatalities reported out of 4,620 new cases. This is a mortality rate of 1.13%. The population known to have been infected is 7.39% or one confirmed case for every 14 people. The actual rate of infection may be higher, perhaps as much as four times higher. I don’t have a report of how many people have been vaccinated in this DC area, but I have heard that half the U.S. has already gotten their first shot. So we are certainly looking at 50-60% who have had their first shot (I have had both of mine) and we are looking at 60-70% of the DC area having either been infected or vaccinated.

Virginia has a number of large universities (23,000 – 36,000 students) located in more rural areas, often tied to a small town. This includes James Madison (JMU) at Harrisonburg, University of Virginia (UVA) at Charlottesville, Liberty University (LU) at Lynchburg and Virginia Tech (VT) at Blacksburg. Most of them were emptied out due to Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Most of these universities went back in session in mid-January, except for UVA, which started its sessions at the beginning of February. I do not report on places like William and Mary (W&M) and Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) as they are located in or near major population centers.

Harrisonburg, VA (pop. 54K) is reporting 6,465 cases (6,434 last week) and 94 deaths, while Rockingham County (pop. 81K), where the town resides, is reporting 6,712 cases (6,636 last week) and 105 deaths. This is where James Madison University is located.

Charlottesville, VA (pop. 47K) has reported 4,013 cases (3,993 last week) and 55 deaths, while Albemarle County, VA (pop. 109K), where the town resides, has reported 5,739 cases (5,673 last week) and 82 deaths. This is where UVA is located. One notes with similar populations the comparison between Harrisonburg/Rockingham vs Charlottesville/Albemarle.

For UVA (https://returntogrounds.virginia.edu/covid-tracker), after peaking at 229 new cases on 2/16, they had imposed new restrictions. The number of cases dropped precipitously and they partially eased up the restrictions. This Monday (4/26) there were only 2 new cases. It does show what can be done with quick reaction and actual lock-down procedures. They are also starting to vaccinate the students there. They have also last week loosened the indoor restrictions to 25 students from the previous restriction of 6 students. So far there has been no increase in the number of cases as a result.

Lynchburg (pop. 82K), the home of Liberty University, has reported 7,650 cases (7,549 last week) cases and 146 deaths.

Further south, Montgomery County, VA (pop. 99K) has reported 9,320 cases (9,226 last week) and 89 deaths. This is where Virginia Tech is located.

I do report the population, number of cases and number of deaths for each of these areas. This is because this is somewhat of a “laboratory-like” situation where you have four universities of 23K to 36K students located in rural areas of around 100K population. They do have different rates per capita in cases and in deaths.  

Virginia (pop. 8.5 million) had only 779 new cases yesterday. Last week it as 1,091 cases. Fourteen weeks ago it was 4,707. For a long time, it pretty much ran 1,000 cases a day, neither going up or going down.

Dare County, North Carolina (pop. 37K), a beach area in the outer banks, has 2,087 cases (2,074 last week) and 10 deaths.

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Christopher A. Lawrence
Christopher A. Lawrence

Christopher A. Lawrence is a professional historian and military analyst. He is the Executive Director and President of The Dupuy Institute, an organization dedicated to scholarly research and objective analysis of historical data related to armed conflict and the resolution of armed conflict. The Dupuy Institute provides independent, historically-based analyses of lessons learned from modern military experience.
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Mr. Lawrence was the program manager for the Ardennes Campaign Simulation Data Base, the Kursk Data Base, the Modern Insurgency Spread Sheets and for a number of other smaller combat data bases. He has participated in casualty estimation studies (including estimates for Bosnia and Iraq) and studies of air campaign modeling, enemy prisoner of war capture rates, medium weight armor, urban warfare, situational awareness, counterinsurgency and other subjects for the U.S. Army, the Defense Department, the Joint Staff and the U.S. Air Force. He has also directed a number of studies related to the military impact of banning antipersonnel mines for the Joint Staff, Los Alamos National Laboratories and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation.
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His published works include papers and monographs for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and the Vietnam Veterans of American Foundation, in addition to over 40 articles written for limited-distribution newsletters and over 60 analytical reports prepared for the Defense Department. He is the author of Kursk: The Battle of Prokhorovka (Aberdeen Books, Sheridan, CO., 2015), America’s Modern Wars: Understanding Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam (Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia & Oxford, 2015), War by Numbers: Understanding Conventional Combat (Potomac Books, Lincoln, NE., 2017) , The Battle of Prokhorovka (Stackpole Books, Guilford, CT., 2019), The Battle for Kyiv (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2023), Aces at Kursk (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024), Hunting Falcon: The Story of WWI German Ace Hans-Joachim Buddecke (Air World, Yorkshire, UK, 2024) and The Siege of Mariupol (Frontline Books, Yorkshire, UK, 2024).
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Mr. Lawrence lives in northern Virginia, near Washington, D.C., with his wife and son.

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One comment

  1. I do not trust the Chinese statistics on COVID. 19 cases for 1.4 billion people?
    It is a Communist propaganda.

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