NOTE: Due to the holiday schedule, the update is abbreviated this week. UVA Biocomplexity Institute slides will resume on January 20. Additionally, COVID-19 scenario projection updates are paused. Foresight work will focus on genomic surveillance, short-term forecasts, and respiratory disease risks. Scenario projections will be incorporated into slides and the modeling report when warranted (e.g., a new variant of concern emerges). Modeling dashboards will remain up, but will not be updated until new projections are created, and links have been removed from this post.
Key Takeaways
- The Commonwealth continues to see sustained growth in weekly case rates. The seven-day average is now 28.3 per 100k. This is up 68% in the last month.
- Fifty-seven counties and cities are reporting high COVID-19 community levels. Up from 19 two weeks ago. The CDC recommends residents of these areas wear masks when in indoor public places. Another 46 locales are at medium community levels. The CDC recommends masking for high-risk individuals in these areas.
- Hospital occupancy is continuing to grow. There are now 1067 Virginians currently hospitalized for COVID-19. This is the highest value seen since February 24, 2022. Of these, 141 are in the Intensive Care Unit, and 38 are on mechanical ventilators. All three metrics are up more than 65% since this time last month.
- BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are still the dominant variants, but they are losing ground. XBB and XBB.1.5 cases are surging, and together account for almost 40% of new cases. We expect them to become the dominant subvariants in the coming weeks.
- The new XBB subvariants can infect those with prior immunity. They are also extremely infectious. Bolstered by winter weather and holiday travel, XBB is expected to cause another surge. Please consider getting your bivalent COVID-19 boosters if you haven’t already. Also please continue to practice good prevention.
This page updates weekly on Friday by 5:00 PM.