Not much new to report on the COVID-19 data front, mainly because the Virginia Department of Health, citing “a technical error,” hasn’t updated its dashboard since May 5. That leaves us only the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association dashboard to scour for new trends. The main trend worth noting from the last few days is that the number of COVID-19 patients in Virginia hospitals has been trending slightly upward (see chart above) and the number of available beds has been trending down. Available beds yesterday dipped to 4,683, the lowest number since the VHHA began publishing the statistic in mid-April.
However, there are no indications that hospitals are suffering from an overload of COVID-19 patients. The number in ICU beds and on ventilators remains near their lows. And no hospitals are reporting shortages of personal protective equipment.
But this is old news and, frankly, as much as I would like to engage readers with something exciting to say, not terribly interesting. So, I’ll quit while I still have your attention.
Update: The VDH numbers are in. Better late than never. The department reports 1,314 new cases over the past two days, an average of 657 per day, which is significantly lower than previous days. On the other hand, the number of new tests logged by VDH also declined — only 8,650 over two days, an average of 4,325 per day, backsliding from the progress previously made toward Governor Ralph Northam’s goal of 10,000 per day.
— JAB
