Holsworth: Jan. 15, 2021, Covid-19 Update

By Dr. Bob Holsworth

Editor’s note: Bearing Drift is grateful to Dr. Bob Holsworth for permission to share his daily Virginia coronavirus updates. For more, follow him on Facebook.

JANUARY 15, COVID-19 UPDATE

1. Hospitalizations and Deaths

Hospitalizations in Virginia have increased by 14% since my last post 13 days ago. At that time, the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) reported 2754 COVID-19 patients in hospitals. Today the number is 3147.

The number of patients in ICUs is 580 today – it was 557 on January 1. The only positive news here is the rapid increase in hospitalizations and ICU patients that we had seen in the weeks leading up to the New Year has relatively stabilized, albeit at a high rate.

In the last 13 days, 575 Virginians have passed away from COVID-19. The 41-person-per-day death rate is the highest two week death rate since the onset of the pandemic.

2. Cases and Test Positivity

With the exception of 2 days with less than 4,000 reported cases, the daily case count from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) has consistently been in the 4500-5700 range. Again, a relative stabilization at a high rate.

NOVA communities have been reporting more than 1,000 cases per day with regularity and I have seen a significant spike in Hampton Roads, on many days reporting case numbers on par with NOVA, something that I had not seen during most of the pandemic.

The virus continues to spread throughout the Commonwealth – spikes in Bedford, Campbell, and Lynchburg are the highest of the pandemic and there appears to be a resurgence on the Eastern shore.

Test positivity has dipped in the last two weeks, from 16.9% to 15.2%, a high percentage but a positive directional signal.

3. Vaccines

A. Virginia and the States

Last evening, President-Elect Biden labeled the vaccine rollout to date a “dismal failure.” 2.8% of Virginians have been vaccinated as of yesterday. There are only seven states that have vaccinated a smaller percentage of their population than Virginia.

Two Comments:

– While the overall performance so far has been disappointing, the situation is not that different from what we’ve seen in other states. The percentage of the entire U.S. population that been vaccinated is 3.4% and only 5 states and the District of Columbia have managed to vaccinate more than 5% of their population. We have the right to expect that the Northam Administration will improve its performance, but we also obviously need a much better coordinated federal-state-local effort than we’ve seen over the last month.

– There has been considerable progress in getting vaccines to long-term care facilities in partnerships with pharmacies and this could significantly impact the number of COVID-related deaths.

B. 65+ Becomes 1B

In an effort to enhance the number of people vaccinated, the Centers for Disease Control has recommended that all individuals 65 and older be immediately eligible for the vaccine along with essential workers and everyone over the age of 75.

This will dramatically increase the number of individuals immediately eligible for vaccination. At the same time, it raises two important challenges. Do we actually have enough vaccines available to meet the increased demand? And do we have a distribution and communication strategy in place that will enable vaccinations to reach the eligible groups effectively and efficiently.

I received an email from a friend late last evening with a link from VDH that enabled me to schedule a 7:45 evening appointment toward the end of the month at Richmond International Raceway. 5 minutes later, there were no more appointments available for the month of January (and apparently none scheduled yet in February)

I was obviously extremely fortunate to obtain the appointment. At the same time it’s clear that going forward, we’ll have to do a lot more work to ensure that we have a transparent and effective distribution/communications strategy to reach individuals in communities that have been most impacted by COVID-19 and to reach those don’t have easy access to the internet or even to information about the vaccine.