
Governor Ralph Northam announced Friday afternoon about how Virginia will now measure the COVID-19 metrics in regards to the re-opening of Virginia’s economy.
The Governor announced the state will no longer require overall new cases to decline for 14 days, but rather will require a decrease in the number of positive tests compared to total tests for 14 days.
Virginia set a record Friday with its testing, processing close to 15,000, more than triple the former daily record. As more test processing occurs, so too will the expected number of positives. While Virginia added 929 confirmed cases in Friday mornings report, only 6.19% of the overall tests were positive. From Thursday’s report, 5,356 tests were processed and 852 confirmed COVID-19 cases were added, which was approximately 15.9%.
Northam reported overall hospitalization in Virginia has been relatively flat around the 2,200 mark and showed a graph that anywhere between 4,000 – 6,000 available hospital beds in the Commonwealth. The Governor attributed his decision to allow elective surgeries and non-emergency dental work to resume to the hospital bed numbers.
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