Two deaths, 20 new cases reported

Dickenson County recorded 20 new COVID-19 cases in a week.

As of March 8, the Virginia Department of Health reported a total of 3,297 confirmed cases in Dickenson County since the pandemic began in early 2020. As of Tuesday, the number had increased to 3,317.

Seventy-five county residents were hospitalized with COVID as of Tuesday.
The county’s number of COVID-19-related deaths increased by two, from 45 to 47.

The omicron variant of the virus continues to spread, but the rate of increasing cases is slowing down.

Nearby, Buchanan County recorded a total of 4,840 positive cases since the pandemic began, an increase of 112 cases in a week. Wise County reported a total of 10,191 cases, an increase of 70 cases in a week.

Russell County Tuesday recorded a total of 6,771 positive cases, according to health department data. That number is nine fewer cases than reported one week earlier. The reason for the decrease was not immediately clear.

REPORTING CHANGE

The health department announced March 10 that it had made several changes to its COVID-19 reporting dashboards.

“The changes are intended to streamline the information that is most helpful in tracking COVID-19 and its impacts on Virginia at this point in the pandemic,” according to the department.

Acting state health Commissioner Dr. Colin M. Greene said, “With COVID-19 cases continuing to decline, and many communities relaxing restrictions, we are consolidating and focusing on the metrics that matter the most in this new phase of the pandemic.”

Among the notable changes was elimination of a dashboard that provided easily accessible COVID numbers specific to each county and city. Now, the dataset including that information is available on the Virginia Open Data Portal, by clicking the COVID-19 link, and will be updated Monday through Friday.