COVID-19: The First Week of NOVA Re-opening

After just one week into the Phase 1 re-opening of northern Virginia businesses, the number of new cases of COVID-19 is increasing at a faster rate than the preceding week.  In fact, the rate of case increases is up 22% in Reston (from 1.8% to 2.1% per day) and Fairfax County’s new case rate increased by more than twice that—48%.  Virginia’s overall case rate, including those counties that opened two weeks earlier, increased 33%.  Worst, the nation’s COVID-19 case rate increased by 59% over the last week.

In Reston, the number of reported cases grew from 420 to 487 over the first week of the county’s re-opening, significantly less than the rate of growth in the county.  Overall, Reston’s number of cases per 100,000 people remains 27% below the county rate, but the county’s case rate per 100K people remains nearly twice that of the state and the nation—very poor.

With only 4.2% of its population tested Virginia remains well behind the nation in testing rate, but Fairfax County (4.7%) and Reston (4.8%) are performing better on this metric.  Nationally, 5.7% of the population has been tested for COVID-19.