October 30, 2020: A longer look at our health district's COVID numbers

Tonight and tomorrow, Decades Arcade will have a costume contest and scavenger hunt for Halloween this Friday and Saturday. Details are in this instagram post. Visit decadesarcade.com for more information on how you can book and their COVID-19 rules and precautions. You’ll also learn that for $200, you can rent the place for two hours for a private party. There are another 1,456 cases of COVID-19 in Virginia today, bringing the seven-day average for new daily cases to 1,194. The seven-day average for positive tests has increased to 5.4 percent, up from 5.3 percent yesterday. An additional case of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children has been reported, bringing the number of cases to eleven. Another metric to watch is the total number of cases per 100,000 people within the last 14 days. That number is 182.2 today, trending upwards from 171.8 a week ago. In the Blue Ridge Health District, there are another 31 cases, bringing the seven-day average to 29. That’s 13 new cases from Albemarle, eight from Charlottesville, three from Fluvanna, one from Greene, and six from Louisa. In October to date, the district as a whole added 896 cases, or about a fifth of the total cases since March. Albemarle has added 285 cases and Charlottesville has added 341 cases. Their October are also around a fifth of the total to date. Fluvanna did not experience as steep an increase this month, with 52 new cases to add to its total of 433. Much of that number is related to an outbreak at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women. Louisa added 114 cases in October, or just over a quarter of their total of 410 to date. Greene added 71 caes for a total of 294. Nelson added 33 cases this month to date, bringing their total to 140. The seven-day average for positive PCR testing in the district is 2.6 percent. That figure is 2.9 percent when all tests are included. In all there have been 100,972 testing encounters in the district since the beginning of the pandemic. No serious changes on the University of Virginia COVID-tracker. There are 56 active cases listed as of yesterday afternoon, with 43 of them students. Five percent of quarantine rooms are in use, as are three percent of isolation rooms. *Earlier this week, officials with the Blue Ridge Health District briefed UVa, Charlottesville and Albemarle County officials on the health district’s pandemic response. Ryan McKay is the director of policy and planning at the district. “In September and October we saw some pretty big increases in the daily cases. We’ve dropped off a little bit in early October but now we’re picking up again,” McKay said. “I think this is sort of the nature of how COVID is going to work. We’ll see increases, we’ll work quickly to mitigate and hopefully contain spread and then at some point we see another increase.” Cases roses as UVA began classes on September 8. But McKay said they were largely contained to the UVA community. “I will say that even though we say larger numbers of cases coming from the University setting, we did not see transmission from students or faculty into the community,” McKay said. However, the University has been conducting a lot of tests, and they all count toward the percent positivity rating. On September 6, the positive percentage for PCR tests was 7.5 percent. That number was at 2.6 percent today.“It’s important to understand that positivity rate may be being skewed by all of those tests that are being done,” McKay said. “We really need to look at what we’re seeing in terms of the raw data, the number of cases we’re seeing, and where that transmission is occurring.” McKay pointed to a key demographic when it comes to the impact of COVID-19. “We also see a pretty significant change when it comes to age,” McKay said. “Even though the majority of our cases are among those who are 10-19 and 20-29, those who are dying of COVID are of older populations, 50 and above.” For the rest of this discussion, take a listen to the latest episode of the Charlottesville Quarantine Report. Download McKay’s presentation here. *The election is a few days away, and tensions are running high across the Commonwealth and the nation. The Center for Politics at the University Virginia will take one more look into Sabato’s Crystal Ball on Monday to give their final thoughts. On Thursday’s episode, Larry Sabato said the national polls are showing Joe Biden ahead, but that may not mean anything. “The polling average as of Thursday is between eight and nine percent lead for Joe Biden, and that’s national, and that’s a healthy lead assuming that the data machine isn’t broken,” Sabato said. “In the swing states, though, it is closer.”Sabato said Biden is leading in California, a state where the high number of votes there won’t gain any electoral votes in the electoral college.“All of those other votes are wasted and they tend to inflate his polling average, his national average in the polls. We certainly think you’d rather be Joe Biden than Donald Trump right now, but I think it’s important to point out that we can see a clear path for Donald Trump to get to 270. Not that it’s easy. A clear path isn’t easy.” You can watch this installment on the Center for Politics’ YouTube page. *In-person voting in Albemarle County was briefly disrupted this morning when emergency crews showed up to investigate a potential gas leak. According to a release, the building was evacuated for about half an hour, and in-person voting resumed soon after. Today and tomorrow are the last days to make a contribution through Patreon for this month. This weekend I’m going to revamp how I use Patreon to emphasize the “behind-the-scenes” content you can get there. You’ll also begin to see the Patreon-fueled shout-outs at the end of these newsletters rather than the top. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit communityengagement.substack.com/subscribe