VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Virginia’s COVID-19 cases keep climbing.
Just one metric from the Virginia Department of Health and the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute shows every health district in the Commonwealth is in the middle of a "growth" or "surge" trajectory. This means there is no longer an area in Virginia, from a health district standpoint, where the trajectory is considered "declining."
In the Hampton Roads region, you’ll see the entire area is marked “red’ to show an “in surge” growth trajectory. The previous week's biocomplexity report showed that four health districts in the state were still considered in a "plateau" state.
“One of the reasons we’re seeing higher percentage rates is because I'm seeing less testing," said Rudy Patel, who runs ARCPoint Labs, a testing lab off of Pembroke Boulevard in Virginia Beach.
His lab has personally seen lower demand for testing, but the number of those coming back positive is higher.
“The last four to five weeks, the trend is higher. Positivity rate has definitely increased, we’re seeing as high as 10 to 12%," Patel said.
Some localities in Hampton Roads are also in the “medium” CDC COVID-19 community-level thresholds, such as Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, James City County, York County, Isle of Wight County and Northampton County.
That largely represents what community levels look like for the entire state, where 92 of the state's 133 localities are in either a "medium" or "high" community level.
Hampton Roads hasn’t seen this “high” threshold yet, but reaching that means changed CDC guidance like masking indoors no matter your vaccination status, and rethinking how you spend your time indoors if you’re immunocompromised. There are currently 27 localities in Virginia that hold a "high" community level.
The latest modeling also projects the latest BA.2.12.1 variant will cause hospitalizations to peak around mid-August.