Key Takeaways
- Case rates and hospitalizations across the Commonwealth remain low. But early signs suggest that Virginia may be headed into a period of new growth.
- Confirmed cases are down slightly from last week. The statewide effective reproduction number (Rₑ) continues to hover just below one at 0.890. This is down 0.033 from last week. No region in the Commonwealth has an Rₑ > 1.0, but several are close. This suggests that cases have plateaued, but not yet begun to grow.
- Most health districts are still in declining or plateaued case trajectories. Ten are now in growth trajectories with two in surge. A total of 36 counties and cities are now at “Medium” community levels. Two are now reporting “High” community levels. In these locales, masking is recommended in indoor public places.
- BA.5 is no longer responsible for the majority of cases in Virginia. The newly introduced variants BF.7, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 now account for an estimated 35% of new cases. These variants can escape prior immunity. They also have significant growth advantages over BA.5. They will likely out-compete it within a few weeks. BA.2.75.2 remains rare, and XBB cases have not been detected in significant numbers.
- Modeling continues to suggest the possibility of another major winter surge. Bivalent boosters remain our best bet to limit the impact of this surge. They are now available for all five and older. Please consider getting yours as soon as possible.
- Note that this is an interim week report. Models were last run on 2022-10-19. The next modeling update will be 2022-11-02 for release the following Friday.
District Trajectory Dashboard.
UVA Biocomplexity Institute Slides.
This page updates weekly on Friday by 5:00 PM.