Fairfax County Public Library offered at-home COVID-19 test kits to the community for the first time this morning (Friday). An hour later, they were all gone.
The county announced on Monday (Nov. 29) that it would join a pilot program that the Virginia Department of Health launched last month to distribute free COVID-19 tests through participating public libraries.
The Fairfax Health District is doing well when it comes to getting vaccinated against COVID-19.
As of yesterday (Monday), 65.5% of residents are fully vaccinated, outpacing the 59.1% national rate, according to Fairfax County Health Department data.
In many ways, this past Thanksgiving weekend looked much more normal than last year’s isolated celebrations.
COVID-19 vaccines enabled many people to gather again with family and friends. Black Friday shoppers returned in droves to local malls, and air travel reached a pandemic high of 2.3 million air travelers the day before Thanksgiving (Nov. 24) — only for that to be topped by 2.4 million travelers yesterday (Sunday), according to the Transportation Security Administration.
Booster COVID-19 shots are now available to all adults in the U.S. — just in time for what promises to be a busy holiday season.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention expanded eligibility for a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to everyone 18 and older early Friday night (Nov. 19), encouraging people to get the added protection before they gather for Thanksgiving and the winter holidays.
More than 16% of children in the Fairfax Health District have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine dose since the shots became available to them on Nov. 3.
As of today (Monday), 17,578 of the district’s over 108,000 residents between the ages of 5 and 11 have received their first dose of the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech regimen, according to the Fairfax County Health Department’s vaccine data dashboard.
For the first time since the end of July, Fairfax County is seeing only a moderate level of COVID-19 transmission in the community.
According to the Virginia Department of Health, the county reported just 41.8 new cases per 100,000 people during the week of Oct. 31 through Nov. 6, down from 50.2 cases over the previous seven days. That puts it in the 10-49 case threshold for a moderate level of community spread.
Fairfax County families interested in getting their children vaccinated against COVID-19 will have a variety of venues to choose from, but finding an available appointment may initially be challenging, the county health department said yesterday (Wednesday).
After months of anticipation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention formally authorized the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5-11 on Tuesday (Nov. 2), recommending a third of the dosage that everyone 12 and older has been able to receive since May.
After a grim 2020, a more festive winter holiday season could be in store this year, as Fairfax County’s third COVID-19 wave continues to ebb.
The 57 new cases reported today (Monday) are the fewest that the Fairfax Health District has seen in a single day since July 27, when there were 52 new cases and the Delta variant was just starting to emerge locally.
Fairfax County’s COVID-19 case levels haven’t entirely come down from the late-summer Delta variant surge, but they appear to be headed in that direction.
The Fairfax Health District, including the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, added 72 cases today (Monday) for a total of 92,739 cases over the course of the pandemic. 4,360 residents have been hospitalized by the novel coronavirus, and 1,209 people have died, including eight people in the past week.
School-based COVID-19 vaccination clinics for elementary school-aged children could be set up as soon as mid-November, Fairfax County Public Schools officials say.
As reported to the Fairfax County School Board at a work session yesterday (Tuesday), these targeted vaccination clinics will be available in evenings or weekends and have a parent or guardian present.
