Governor says no changes before Labor Day; Virginia positive test percentage holds steady

RICHMOND, Va. (WDBJ) - The Virginia Department of Health is reporting 121,615 total cases of COVID-19 in the commonwealth as of Tuesday morning, going back to the beginning of the pandemic. That’s up from 120,594 reported Monday, a 1,021-case increase, which is a bigger increase than the 847 new cases reported from Sunday to Monday.

Governor Northam held a news conference Tuesday with a commonwealth update on COVID-19. You can watch it live on the governor’s Facebook page.

The governor says there will be no changes in guidelines or business restrictions before Labor Day, in an effort to slow the kind of post-holiday spikes the state saw after the 4th of July. He urges people to wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines over the holiday weekend.

Northam says about 460,000 people have downloaded the COVIDwise app, designed to notify people who have come into contact with people who have tested positive.

He continues to urge people to get tested, especially if they work around other people. Click here to find a place to get tested.

5,321 of Virginia’s overall cases as of Tuesday are considered “probable.”

The city of Radford, a hot spot lately because of a spike in cases, jumped from 399 cases Monday to 467 Tuesday. Northam pointed out numbers in southwest Virginia overall have trended upward regarding daily new cases; two months ago we averaged 80 a day, a number that has jumped to 220.

Click here for all the numbers and breakdowns.

There are 2,612 recorded coronavirus-related deaths in the commonwealth since the pandemic’s beginning, up from 2,580 reported Monday.

1,581,291 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests have been conducted, with a 7.4 percent positive rate over the last week, the same as the number reported Monday.

1,039 people across Virginia are hospitalized as of Tuesday with confirmed or test-pending cases of COVID-19. That’s down from the 1,082 reported Monday. 15,199 COVID patients have been released from hospitals in Virginia since the beginning of the pandemic. That’s according to the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association, which gets a daily report from hospitals around the commonwealth.

These hospital numbers are different from those reported by VDH, which only gathers hospitalization status at the time each case is investigated by VDH, and is an underrepresentation of Virginia hospitalizations.

COVID-19: What you need to know about the coronavirus

Any new confirmed cases from health departments throughout the state the rest of the day won’t show up until at least the following day on the state list, as the official numbers are only updated once a day, with a 5 p.m. cutoff each day for new cases to be reflected on the next day’s list.

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