NORFOLK, Va. — New research from the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association gives a snapshot into Virginia's hospital system through the rise-and-fall of COVID-19 cases.
The big takeaway is how effective the start of Virginia's vaccination campaign was in tackling the disease and its spread. This research features COVID trends before June 30, leaving out a late-summer surge in cases caused mainly by the delta variant.
It shows that once vaccinations became widely available, COVID-19 hospital discharges dropped by nearly half from the start of 2021.
The VHHA says they use “discharges” rather than admissions as a way to ensure they track anyone who leaves a hospital system with a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, and not miss patients who came to a hospital without a positive diagnosis first.
The severity of these COVID cases dropped, too.
From January to March of this year, there were more than 28,000 emergency department visits in the state. But between April and June, emergency visits dropped to under 10,000.
And this rise in vaccinations led to a lower average age for hospitalizations.
At the beginning of the state's vaccine push: the average age of a hospitalized COVID-19 patient was over 70. But by June, the average age dropped to under 65.
According to the Virginia Department of Health, there have been more than 14,000 coronavirus-related deaths in the Commonwealth.