Gathering Sizes To Be Increased By Virginia Governor In April

VIRGINIA — Larger groups of people will soon be able to gather Gov. Ralph Northam said as he announced plans to further ease his Forward Virginia restrictions starting on April 1.

At a Tuesday news briefing in Richmond, Northam said he can ease COVID-19 restrictions due to lower coronavirus case counts and rising vaccination numbers. The changes will affect social gathering sizes and capacity limits at entertainment venues, recreational sporting events, and in-person graduations.

Starting April 1, social gatherings will be allowed up to 50 people indoors and 100 people outdoors. Entertainment venues may operate at 30 percent capacity, or up to 500 people indoors —whichever is lower. Outdoor entertainment venues will be capped at 30 percent with no numeric cap. Recreational sporting events can be limited to 30 percent capacity. Spectators may be up to 100 at indoor events and 500 at outdoor events.

Last week, the governor also announced guidance for in-person graduation events. Outdoor graduations can operate at up to 5,000 people or 30 percent capacity — whichever is lower. Indoor events will be capped at 500 people or 30 percent capacity — the lower of the two.

Northam said state officials will continue to monitor COVID-19 trends, but he believes case counts will continue to trend down if Virginians continue to wear a mask in public, wash hands, practice social distancing and get vaccinated.

"Remember if you are attending these events and I hope that you can, you need to wear masks and follow other guidelines and safety protocols," said Northam. "To be very clear, we are not simply throwing the doors open or as Dr. [Anthony] Fauci said this morning, we don't want to just flip a switch. These are measured changes. We still have a strict gathering limit, a universal mask mandate and capacity restrictions both indoors and outdoors."

COVID-19 Vaccine Update

Northam and other U.S. governors spoke Tuesday morning with Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser and director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Governors learned the federal government will increase weekly allocations of the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine to states by five times. Northam said that means 48,000 Johnson & Johnson doses are expected next week in Virginia.

In addition, governors discussed studies about the AstraZeneca vaccine candidate and the federal government's upcoming education campaign about safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

"It's exciting that our country now has three safe and effective vaccines, and as you know more may be coming," said Northam.

In all, Virginia received an allocation of over 500,000 vaccine doses this week. The state is averaging just below 50,000 doses administered daily, but Northam said more than 60,000 or 70,000 doses can be administered on some days.

To date, close to one in four Virginians have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. Among the vaccinated are Northam and his wife, Pamela, who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine last week. Northam said both he and his wife are feeling well after the vaccination.

As of Tuesday, Virginia Department of Health data indicates 2,087,082 people in Virginia have at least one vaccine dose (24.5 percent of the population), and 1,142,467 are fully vaccinated (13.4 percent of the population).

Local health departments have provided 998,228 doses, hospitals have given 754,615, pharmacies have given 629,115, medical practices have given 459,337, and community providers have given 308,123.

Mass vaccination clinics started to open last week in Danville and Petersburg, and another is opening Tuesday in Prince William County. Northam said the Prince William clinic has the ability to administer up to 3,000 doses per day by appointment, six days per week.

The governor called the mass vaccination sites efficiently run operations to due to the work of thousands.

"A number of local health departments, hospital systems and others have worked very hard over the past couple of months to ramp up these vaccination clinics," Northam said. "I want to thank everyone involved in these efforts: health departments and hospital staff, nurses, doctors who give shots, the National Guard, all the volunteers through the medical reserve corps and everyone who helps make these clinics run so smoothly."

Some health districts have moved into phase 1c, and Northam said Virginia is on track to meet President Joe Biden's goal of providing vaccine access to every adult by May 1.

Northern Virginia localities remain in phase 1b with waitlists due to limited doses, leading local leaders to push the governor for increased allocations.

Dr. Danny Avula, the state's vaccine coordinator, said the state has been shifting allocations to places with more phase 1b demand in the last few weeks.

"There are communities where we're seeing the demand in phase 1 slow down, and so that means we are going to push vaccines to other parts of the state so that we can all try to move forward into the general population around the same time," said Avula.

Northam sees the vaccine as the key to ultimately resuming normal life.

"The virus survives by infecting new people. The more people that get vaccinated, the fewer people the virus is able to infect," Northam said. "We all want to get back to normal and the way to do that is to get vaccinated as soon as you can."

COVID-19 Data

During the news briefing, the governor noted downward trends of cases, percent positivity of tests, hospitalizations, and the need for intensive care unit beds and ventilators.

On Tuesday, 1,267 additional COVID-19 cases and 10 deaths were reported by the VDH. The seven-day average of daily cases stands at 1,442, compared to a peak average of 6,166 daily cases on Jan. 18.

"There's still a lot of virus out in our communities. That number has hit a plateau, and we're watching that very closely. But there is still a vast improvement over where we were just six weeks ago," Northam said.

State Health Commissioner M. Norm Oliver noted that a "couple hundred" cases of variants have been identified in Virginia but far more are suspected. Variants confirmed in Virginia include the UK variant, South African variant, and a few California variants. He said when a positive case is suspected to be a variant, genomic analysis is conducted at the state laboratory.

"The key to dealing with the variants — since none of them have been shown yet to cause more serious disease, they are more transmissible — the key to that ... is getting people vaccinated," Oliver said.

Overall, Virginia's positive average of PCR tests has declined since the start of January. As of March 19, the average is 5.6 percent, compared to 17.4 percent on Jan. 3.

The average number of testing encounters has fallen since mid-January. The latest average is 18,262 daily PCR tests, compared to 35,034 on Jan. 14.

Hospitalizations stand at 1,033 statewide, which includes 225 patients in the intensive care units and 135 on ventilators. Ventilator use among all hospital patients is at 29 percent, and ICU occupancy is at 76 percent, according to the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association.

Below are the latest coronavirus data updates for our coverage area from Monday to Tuesday:

• Alexandria: 10,784 cases, 528 hospitalizations, 128 deaths; increase of 13 cases and three hospitalizations
• Arlington County: 13,915 cases, 790 hospitalizations, 243 deaths; increase of 18 cases
• Fairfax County: 70,096 cases, 3,657 hospitalizations, 1,034 deaths; increase of 118 cases, 11 hospitalizations, and four deaths
• Fairfax City: 509 cases, 41 hospitalizations, 17 deaths; no changes
• Falls Church: 378 cases, 20 hospitalizations, 10 deaths; increase of five cases
• Loudoun County: 24,659 cases, 927 hospitalizations, 263 deaths; increase of 56 cases and three hospitalizations
• Manassas: 4,120 cases, 166 hospitalizations, 45 deaths; increase of two cases
• Manassas Park: 1,153 cases, 67 hospitalizations, 12 deaths; increase of three cases
• Prince William County: 41,153 cases, 1,497 hospitalizations, 467 deaths; increase of 91 cases, two hospitalizations, and one death
• Fredericksburg: 1,844 cases, 94 hospitalizations, 22 deaths; increase of two cases
• Spotsylvania County: 8,655 cases, 286 hospitalizations, 107 deaths; increase of 14 cases
• Stafford County: 9,970 cases, 333 hospitalizations, 68 deaths; increase of 23 cases