The novel coronavirus is spreading exponentially in Fairfax County, outpacing even last winter’s surge.
The Fairfax County Health Department reported 569 COVID-19 cases this morning (Monday) for the Fairfax Health District, which includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, pushing the total for the pandemic up to 102,362 cases.
Fairfax County’s current COVID-19 surge has now surpassed the late summer wave fueled by the delta variant’s arrival.
The county is averaging 216.7 new cases per day for the past week — the most since Feb. 19, when the weekly average was at 228.9 cases, according to Virginia Department of Health data.
(Updated at 6:40 p.m.) Like the rest of the country, Fairfax County continues to see increasing levels of COVID-19 transmission.
The county is now averaging about three times as many new cases per day as it was less than a month ago, with a seven-day average of 189.4 cases today (Monday), according to Virginia Department of Health data.
Two days before Thanksgiving, the 29 Diner was decimated by a fire. The next day, owner John K. Wood got back to work.
“It was a total loss,” Wood told FFXnow of the damage to the iconic, 74-year-old Fairfax City eatery. “But there’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s time to celebrate what this diner means to the community. I’m going to be here every day that I can — rain, sleet, snow — to watch the rebirth of the 29 Diner.”
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.
