COVID case rates continue slide

Dickenson County is seeing a decline in COVID-19 cases.

Virginia Department of Health data reported Monday actually revised downward the county’s total confirmed case count since the pandemic began. As of March 15, the department reported 3,317 total cases. However, the data from Monday reported 3,306 total cases.

The reason for the downward revision was not immediately available.

Meanwhile, 76 county residents were hospitalized with COVID as of Monday, one more than were reported six days earlier.

The county’s number of COVID-19-related deaths remained at 47.

Nearby, Buchanan County recorded a total of 4,864 positive cases since the pandemic began, an increase of 24 cases in six days. Wise County reported a total of 10,217 cases, an increase of 26 cases in six days.

Russell County reported 6,795 cases, an increase of 24 cases in six days.

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.