Virginia June 12 COVID-19 update: Virginia’s percent of positive tests drops to 8% after backlog of 43K tests added

Posted: Jun 12, 2020 / 11:23 AM EDT

Updated: Jun 12, 2020 / 11:43 AM EDT

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Virginia reported 564 new COVID-19 cases on Friday, slightly up from Thursday, but it’s the fifth straight day of reported new cases under 600.

Friday also saw the state’s percent 7-day average of percent of positive cases reach an all-time low of 8% after about 43,000 mostly negative new PCR tests were added to the state’s official count (448,172) since Thursday morning, when only 405,025 total were reported. The Virginia Department of Health says this major jump in testing numbers is due to two laboratories beginning to electronically report their backlog of tests this week.

About 31,500 of the 43,000 new tests were backlogged from those labs with the rest representing regular daily reporting numbers.

Positive results were hand entered into the system and reported to VDH when they were received, but this large chunk of negative results weren’t displayed on VDH’s website until Friday.

This major increase comes days after VDH announced it was also adding a backlog of about 13,000 mostly negative tests from a Richmond-area lab to the state’s official count. At the time, VDH said the entry of those results alleviated their backlog by about half. The Richmond lab had been sending results to via fax to VDH, which prioritized added positive results to the state’s data.

Though Friday’s case increase (564) was about 100 higher than Thursday’s (470), daily cases have fallen sharply in the last two weeks. Concerns that numbers would spike up due to protests and the lifting of restrictions mostly have materialized in Virginia data.

Hospitalizations

COVID-19 hospitalizations dipped to a new low on Friday to 1,026, down 43 from Thursday. Like daily cases, current hospitalizations have fallen steadily. 7,002 COVID-19 patients have now been discharged from the hospital.

Deaths

14 new deaths were reported Friday, bringing Virginia’s total to 1,534, but Virginia health officials emphasized again on Thursday that all of those deaths are not necessarily in the last 24 hours. Virginia’s map of deaths by day of death instead of date reported shows a steady fall since early May.

12 of those 14 deaths were in long-term care facilities in the state, where 870 Virginians how now died due to COVID-19.

Latest outbreak death totals:

Long-term care – 870
Congregate – 25
Correctional – 8
Healthcare – 5
Educational – 0

Here are the latest numbers for Tidewater:

Accomack: 987 cases, 58 hospitalized, 13 deaths (+3 cases, +3 hospitalized)
Chesapeake: 636 cases, 99 hospitalized, 16 deaths (+14 cases, +1 hospitalized, +1 death)
Franklin: 43 cases, 3 hospitalized, 2 deaths (no increases)
Gloucester: 35 cases, 9 hospitalized, 1 death (+1 case)
Hampton: 234 cases, 37 hospitalized, 5 deaths (+1 case)
Isle of Wight: 150 cases, 15 hospitalized, 8 deaths (no increases)
James City County: 230 cases, 56 hospitalized, 15 deaths (+5 cases)
Mathews: 5 cases, 2 hospitalized, 0 deaths (no increases)
Newport News: 351 cases, 41 hospitalized, 10 deaths (+14 cases)
Norfolk: 630 cases, 74 hospitalized, 7 deaths (+11 cases)
Northampton: 259 cases, 34 hospitalized, 27 deaths (no increases)
Poquoson: 11 cases, 2 hospitalized, 0 deaths (+1 case)
Portsmouth: 370 cases, 56 hospitalized, 11 deaths (+6 cases)
Southampton: 155 cases, 7 hospitalized, 2 deaths (no increases)
Suffolk: 337 cases, 52 hospitalized, 33 deaths (+4 cases)
Virginia Beach: 847 cases, 107 hospitalized, 27 deaths (+15 cases)
Williamsburg: 49 cases, 11 hospitalized, 5 deaths (no increases)
York: 90 cases, 10 hospitalized, 3 deaths (+1 case)