Gov. Ralph Northam said Friday all Virginians must practice social distancing and urged residents to stay home except for essential needs for the next few weeks.
He defined essential needs such as going to work if a person’s job was considered essential, going outside if you need fresh air and trips to the grocery store.
As of Friday, James City County remains to have one of the highest positive cases of coronavirus in the state per capita at 55; Williamsburg has 5, York County, 9, Newport News 12, 5 in Hampton, and 1 in Poquoson, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
The website now shows a breakdown of positive cases by age, gender and ethnicity.
The most amount of positive cases are persons between the ages of 50-59 at 108 or about 17.9 percent, followed by those between the ages of 60-69 at 101, 16.7 percent.
Individuals between the ages of 20 and 29 have 93 positive cases, 15.4 percent. See the full breakdown here.
So far, 14 people have died in Virginia — 7 in the Peninsula Health District, 2 in Henrico County Health District, 1 in Pittsylvania-Danville Health District, 1 in Fairfax Health District and 1 in the Virginia Beach Health District. It’s unclear where the 13th and 14th deaths happened.
The Peninsula Health District covers Newport News, Poquoson, Williamsburg, James City County and York County and the Hampton Health District covers Hampton.
On Thursday, there were 460 cases in Virginia with 49 in James City County, York County, 9, Williamsburg, 5, Newport News, 8 and 1 in Hampton.
As of Friday, 7,337 people have been tested in the state. There are 83 hospitalizations, so far.
Testing criteria
- 604 positive cases.
- Testing cap:1,800.
- Not enough testing materials.
- Military personnel is included in priority testing. Must meet general criteria and military installations will have access to state testing kits.
- State is looking to process larger tests at once. Currently testing manual processing using CDC testing.
- Turnaround times: State labs’ goal is 1-2 days, Private labs is currently 5-7 days.
- UVA, VCU and Sentara: Rapid testing 24-48 hours availability.
- Northam wants the federal government to set up a testing site for DC-Maryland-Virginia because of large number of federal employees.
Medical equipment
- Not enough personal protective equipment (ie, masks, gloves, gowns, etc).
- Bed capacity and ventilators: 2,000 icu beds with ventilators.
- Department of Corrections made thousands of face guards, testing them now.
- Micron, Home Depot and Dominion Energy donated PPE recently.
- Working with manufacturing companies to make PPE.
- Want to donate PPE? Click here.
- Army Corps of Engineers: Evaluating potential site for emergency hospital beds.
- Virginia National Guard: Helping move supplies, and emergency logistics.
- Virginia Medical Reserve Corps: 650 volunteers in the past two days. Want to volunteer? Must be 18 or older, have a previous or current license or be student.
Other updates
- Parks & Recreation including campgrounds: No overnight stays for state parks starting Friday. Encourages private campgrounds to do the same.
- Construction projects: Critical projects still ongoing, workers considered essential.
- Gen. Assembly budget- Looking at CARE Act, current budget and will reconvene on April 23.
- ABC stores: Essential under emergency operations plan- because they can achieve social distancing.
- Stimulus package update: Congress passed the CARE Act Friday.
- USNS Comfort: President Donald Trump plans to visit Norfolk Saturday to see off Comfort’s deployment to New York. Ship will help with patient and trauma care as well as free up hospital beds.
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