Covid cases trending down in Fairfax County to start August

After staying level in the early summer, COVID-19 cases have been on a more decisive downward trend since mid-July in the Fairfax Health District, which includes Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.

The 231 new cases reported today (Monday) are the fewest to come in on a single day since just 169 cases were added on May 2, according to Virginia Department of Health data.

More tellingly, the district’s seven-day average has declined from 455.3 cases on July 14 to 354.4 cases today. The last time the weekly average was in the mid-300s was early May, when cases were surging with the arrival of new omicron subvariants.

Even with overall cases dropping, though, hospitalizations have been on an upward trajectory since the spring.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which continues to classify Fairfax County’s community level as “medium,” an estimated 90 county residents were admitted to a hospital with confirmed COVID-19 from July 20-27 — a 26.6% increase from the previous seven days.

Those individuals are occupying 5.2% of staffed, inpatient hospital beds and 3.6% of intensive care unit beds.

In addition, roughly one out of every five PCR tests are still coming back positive for Covid, with the Fairfax Health District reported a 20.3% positivity rate, as of Thursday (July 28). After plummeting in June, testing encounters in the district plateaued in July, hovering between 1,400 and 1,650 tests on average.

Overall, the district has recorded 227,999 Covid cases, 4,792 hospitalizations, and 1,565 deaths during the pandemic.

Vaccinations have incrementally but steadily climbed since late March, according to the Fairfax County Health Department’s dashboard, which shows that 1,004,414 district residents — or 84.9% — have now received at least one dose.

That includes:

• 92.8% of people 18 and older
• 99.1% of 16-17 year olds
• 95.3% of 12-15 year olds
• 61.6% of 5-11 year olds
• 11% of kids aged 6 months to 4 years

The district has 913,243 residents who are now fully vaccinated, which is 77.2% of the population, including 85.2% of adults.

The highest percentage of booster shots has been among residents aged 65 to 84, more than 70% of whom have gotten the additional doses. All age groups under 55 years old are still below 50%.