Fairfax County sees COVID-19 cases drop to pre-Christmas levels

Fairfax County has now seen close to a month of plummeting COVID-19 case rates.

With 267 new cases reported today (Monday), the Fairfax Health District, which includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church, is averaging 448 cases per day for the past week, a steep decline from the seven-day average of 2,590 cases recorded when the omicron variant-fueled surge peaked on Jan. 13.

The current seven-day average is the lowest that the district has seen since Dec. 20, when it was at 403 cases, according to Virginia Department of Health data.

The level of community transmission is still considered high, though, with the county seeing 293 new cases per 100,000 people and a 8.5% testing positivity rate for the week of Jan. 30 through Feb. 5.

In total, 172,751 district residents have contracted the coronavirus during the pandemic. Covid has put 4,424 people in the hospital, and killed 1,333 people, including 52 deaths reported since last week.

The majority of those deaths likely occurred in January due to the time it takes for deaths to be reported and the cause confirmed. VDH said on Friday (Feb. 4) that it was just starting to receive an influx of death certificates related to the omicron surge.

“Certified death certificates continue to be reported, so VDH will continue to receive new death certificates for the deaths that occurred in January 2022 and those that will occur subsequently over the next few weeks and months ahead until the Omicron surge dissipates,” the department explained.

VDH added in the news release that “the best defense against COVID-19 infection, hospitalization and death remains vaccination.”

As of Jan. 17-29, the Covid infection rate in Virginia was 4.7 times higher for people who aren’t unvaccinated compared to those who have gotten at least two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines, or the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

According to the Fairfax County Health Department, 90% of all Fairfax Health District residents 18 and older have received at least one vaccine dose, as of today.

At least one dose has been administered to 954,019 residents overall, or 80.6% of the population, including:

• 95.5% of 16-17 year olds
• 91% of 12-15 year olds
• 48.9% of 5-11 year olds

The district has 845,140 fully vaccinated residents — 71.4% of the population, including 80.2% of adults.

Photo via CDC/Unsplash