Teachers Get Valentines — Fairfax County Public Schools’ teachers received 7,000 personal Valentine cards across 40 schools last week. The initiative was part of Volunteer Fairfax’s annual Valentine’s challenge. [FCPS]
New County Testing Sources Begin Today — After the closure of community testing center, the county is working with the state to launch a vendor-operated van for testing. The service is expected to begin today and will offer free PCR testing for individuals three months and older. [Fairfax County Government]
Reston Manager Receives Lifetime Award — Caliber Home Loans recognized Michael McBride with a lifetime achievement award for managing the company’s Northern Virginia Branch. McBridge was selected from a pool of nationwide contenders. The award is given to managers who provide exceptional production performance. [Reston Patch]
Photo by Terry Baranski
(Updated at 7:51 pm)
Library Testing Kits Put On Hold — County libraries will no longer provide COVID-19 rapid tests for distribution. The program, which is managed by the Virginia Department of Health, is on hold due to supply chain issues. The program will restart when the issues are resolved. [Fairfax County Government]
Deadline for Reston Association Fee Approaches — The association’s annual fee is due on March 1. Payments can be made online, over the phone or by mail. [RA]
Reston-based Company Prepares for Growth Spurt — Science Logic, a software company, is embarking on another hiring spree. It plans to boost its workforce by 40 percent this year, a spree that could lead to a Wall Street debut. [Washington Business Journal]
At-home Tests Coming This Week — Americans will be able to order free COVID-19 rapid tests on Wednesday. Each household will be eligible for up to four tests. [The Washington Post]
Redistricting Plan Gets Big OK — The Virginia Attorney General recently approved the county’s recently-passed redistricting plan. In planning jargon, the attorney general granted the county a certificate of no objection, which allows the county to implement its new local election districts as adopted. [Fairfax County Government]
Rapper Arrested After Narcotics Found in Bags — Rapper Vic Mensah was taken into custody Saturday morning after customs officials found a cache of illicit narcotics in his baggage. [Reston Patch]
Photo by Marjorie Copson
NoVA Child Dies From COVID-19 — “Today, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) announced that a child in the Northern Region with COVID-19 has died. VDH will disclose no further information about the child to protect privacy and out of respect for the patient’s family. This is the first reported death of a child in the Northern Region with COVID-19 in Virginia.” [VDH]
Fairfax County Task Force Returns From Haiti — Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department responders who deployed to Haiti as part of the Virginia Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue team came home on Wednesday (Aug. 25). The 65-member task force landed at Dulles International Airport after 11 days of supporting the disaster response to the Aug. 14 earthquake that devastated the island nation. [WTOP]
Charges Anticipated in Herndon Stabbing — As of 5:45 p.m. yesterday (Thursday), the suspect in a stabbing that occured that morning in the 1000 block of Elden Street in Herndon had not yet been apprehended, but a police department spokesperson said they “do not believe he poses an immediate danger to our community.” Charges are expected to be filed in the case today (Friday). [Patch]
FCPS Sees Decline in Test Participation — “Fairfax County and Virginia schools as a whole saw declining participation in the spring 2021 Standards of Learning (SOL) tests. At Fairfax County Public Schools, participation rates fell by an average 20 percent in reading, mathematics, and science. Around 50,000 tests were refused this year, compared to over 500 in 2018-19.” [Patch]
Photo via vantagehill/Flickr
July marks the fifth month of reported COVID-19 cases in Fairfax County — and testing for the virus is becoming more widely available.
In total, Fairfax County has seen more than 14,000 COVID-19 cases, 1,600 hospitalizations and 495 deaths since March, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The number of cases reported daily has been decreasing for the last few months while testing has ramped up in the Fairfax Health District, according to the state health data.
People can get a viral test — called a Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test — to test for a current infection or antibody tests, which test for recent or past infections, according to Fairfax County.
The Tysons area has several testing sites, including Inova Urgent Care and certain CVS stores. People looking to get tested can check out lists of testing sites from the VDH website, Fairfax County and CVS.
Fairfax County officials are encouraging residents with symptoms to get tested, along with supporting increased contact tracing efforts and community testing sites.
When we asked readers on May 1, a resounding 85 percent of respondents said they did not get tested Roughly eight percent said they planned too, but hadn’t yet.
Let us know in the poll below, and if you’re willing to share, we’d be interested in hearing what your COVID-19 testing experience was like. Feel free to share in the comments or send us an email at [email protected].
Staff photo by Jay Westcott
Updated at 4:55 p.m. —Â “Kaiser has set up five different sites across the region for members with a doctor’s prescription for testing,” WTOP reported. “The health maintenance organization has testing sites in Baltimore, Largo, Gaithersburg, Tysons Corner and Woodbridge.”
Drive-thru coronavirus testing sites are starting to pop up around the U.S. to screen patients for the virus.
Fairfax County doesn’t have any plans at the moment to open a drive-through testing site, Ali Althen, a spokesperson for Fairfax County, told Tysons Reporter yesterday.
“The decision to open sites would likely be made by the medical community and not the county government,” Althen said.
Earlier this week, Arlington County and Virginia Hospital teamed up for a drive-thru testing site to cut down on the number of people trying to get tested at hospitals and doctor’s offices.
“Arlington residents, county and school system employees and Virginia Hospital Center patients, who are experiencing symptoms consistent with coronavirus and have a written order from a healthcare provider, will be eligible for testing,” ARLnow reported.
As of Thursday morning, the Virginia Department of Health says there are 77 presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 in the commonwealth, with 14 in Fairfax County.
If the county does decide to open drive-thru sites, it would let people know “across our channels to help members of the public find and make use of those sites as necessary and appropriate,” Althen said.
On Thursday afternoon, Fairfax County released more information about testing sites:
Up until recently, COVID-19 testing was only available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state laboratories, with local health departments like ours helping to coordinate and facilitate those tests based on very specific testing criteria. Now that we have commercial laboratories testing capability, physicians have wider latitude to order testing.
Still, several challenges have limited testing for Fairfax County residents:
- With shortages of personal protective equipment across the nation, health care providers who lack recommended protective equipment may not test because of the risk to their health and ability to continue providing care in the community.
- The materials needed for specimen collection before being sent to the lab are in limited supply nationwide.
The Health Department does not evaluate patients or collect specimens for commercial testing because these functions are best performed by primary care providers, urgent care centers or Emergency Departments where a complete medical evaluation, radiology, and other types of laboratory testing are available.
Let us know what you think of the coronavirus drive-thru sites in the poll below.
Photo via CDC/Unsplash
