With Covid cases falling, 85 percent of Fairfax residents partly vaccinated

In the Fairfax Health District, COVID-19 cases are on the decline, and vaccinations have continued to rise.

At least one Covid vaccine dose has been administered to 85% of all residents in the district, which includes Fairfax County and the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, according to the Fairfax County Health Department’s data dashboard.

That amounts to 1,005,887 residents, including:

• 92.8% of people aged 18 and older
• 99% of 16-17 year olds
• 95.4% of 12-15 year olds
• 61.8% of 5-11 year olds
• 12% of kids aged 4 months through 4 years

The district has 914,421 fully vaccinated residents, or 77.3%, including 85.2% of adults. Booster rates have ticked up slightly since last week, with over 10% of kids aged 5 to 11 years old having now gotten an additional dose.

Though the test positivity rate has soared to 23.1%, meaning that nearly one out of every four PCR tests is coming back positive, the overall number of cases reported in the Fairfax Health District has dropped from an average of over 455 cases per day on July 14 to 317 cases today (Monday).

That remains roughly twice as high as the case levels seen last August, when a surge tied to the then-dominant delta variant prompted local health officials to revive guidance that everyone wear face masks indoors.

Still, if the current downward trend in cases holds, Fairfax County could potentially soon see its COVID-19 community level drop from “medium,” where it has been since early May.

As of this past Thursday (Aug. 4), the county is seeing 206.36 cases per 100,000 residents. If that drops below 200 cases, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would rank its community level as “low” based on its rates of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 residents (6.6) and staffed inpatient beds used by Covid patients (4.9%).

There were an estimated 79 new hospital admissions of county residents with COVID-19 through last Wednesday (Aug. 3), a 12.7% decline from the previous seven days, per the CDC.

The Fairfax Health District has recorded 230,218 Covid cases, 4,824 hospitalizations, and 1,578 deaths during the pandemic.