Fairfax County’s COVID-19 caseload has doubled since late March

Fairfax County’s COVID-19 transmission level is still well below where it was this past winter, but a rise in cases that was barely perceptible a week ago has started to solidify into a more concrete trend.

The Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax and Falls Church cities, is averaging 167 cases a day for the past week. That’s the highest weekly average since Feb. 18 (169 cases) and more than twice this year’s low point of 77 cases on March 22, according to Virginia Department of Health data.

The current seven-day average is even higher — 191 cases — when looking at the Fairfax County Health Department, which doesn’t take data clean-up adjustments into account.

The uptick is driven in part by the addition of 254 cases on Saturday (April 9) — the most cases reported by the district in one day since Feb. 11, which had 311 new cases.

The omicron subvariant that drove up Covid cases in Europe last month has now become the dominant strain in the U.S. It is responsible for about two-thirds of infections in the mid-Atlantic region, which includes Virginia, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data indicates.

Evidence suggests the subvariant, known as BA.2, is more contagious and spreads faster than the original omicron variant, which fueled this winter’s surge, but it doesn’t appear to make people sicker, the FCHD says.

At the same time, hospitalizations and deaths due to the coronavirus continue to decline, according to the CDC, which still classifies the level of COVID-19 in the county as low.

During the pandemic, the Fairfax Health District has recorded 181,385 COVID-19 cases, 4,455 hospitalizations and 1,497 deaths among residents, including 90 new cases today (Monday).

According to the FCHD’s dashboard, 967,835 district residents — 81.8% of the population — have received at least one dose of vaccine, including:

• 90.8% of people aged 18 and older
• 96.9% of 16-17 year olds
• 92.8% of 12-15 year olds
• 53.5% of 5-11 year olds

876,264 residents, or 74%, are now fully vaccinated, including 82.8% of adults. Just in Fairfax County, 488,322 residents — 42.4% of the population — have gotten a booster or third shot, including 51.8% of adults and 33.4% of adolescents aged 12 to 17.