The Shadow
New COVID-19 cases in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts have reached levels not seen since the winter months of December and January.
Over the past week, health officials have confirmed 1,172 new cases of the virus in the region. Hospitalizations are also up. Ninety-three people were hospitalized on Monday, representing an increase of 23 from last week. Sixty-two were new admissions.
Health officials are attributing the continued rise in cases to the Delta variant of the virus, which is far more contagious than earlier strains.
“Delta is really ravaging our community and it’s discouraging,” said Dr. Cynthia Morrow, medical director for the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts.
Morrow held her online media briefing Tuesday morning.
“I know that people are frustrated. They’re so exhausted with COVID. But we need to keep fighting this fight. This virus continues to ravage our community, and we need to do everything in our power to prevent it from causing any further damage,” she said.
Morrow said vaccines continue to hold the key to bringing the pandemic to an end. However, vaccination rates in the two health districts continue to slowly trickle upward. Since last week, approximately 2,600 doses of vaccine had been administered in the health districts. Many of those doses were not first-time doses, Morrow said.
“It’s really the only way out of this, and to know that our community members are hurting to the extent that they are hurting, and we have the power to do something about it, is challenging,” she said. “As much as have said this over the last 19 months, the reality is that we need to do more. We need to continue fighting this and I don’t think the message can ever get old.”
In the Alleghany Highlands, vaccine rates are rising, but they continue to trail the state average. In Alleghany County, 63.9 percent of adults have received at least one dose of vaccine. In Covington, the rate is 60.3 percent.
In Virginia, 80.6 percent of adults have received at least one shot, translating into 68 percent of the total population.
Morrow says that an unvaccinated person in Virginia is 15.6 times more likely to contract the virus. Of the 1,172 new cases confirmed in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts over the past week, 45 percent are persons under the age of 34. Moreover, 20 percent are under the age of 18 and 12 percent are under the age of 12.
The Delta strain, Morrow says, continued to disproportionately affect younger segments of the population.
She urges parents of children who are over the age of 12 to get their children vaccinated. The health districts will offer vaccines to younger children as soon as they receive regulatory clearance, Morrow said.
“No parents want their children to become ill and we will have a safe and effective vaccine if the process works out,” she said of the development of a vaccine for children.
Meanwhile, in addition to getting vaccinated, the health director is continuing to stress the need for people to take precautionary measures to slow the spread of the virus. Those measures include avoiding crowds and wearing masks while indoors.
“I have noticed just walking into grocery stores that there are a lot more people wearing masks than there were a month ago. But there’s still a lot of people out and about in public not knowing the vaccination status of the people around them who are not wearing masks. Again, as tired as we are about wearing masks and physical distancing, we know that those measures work. And frankly, we should all be wearing them at all times right now. Our rates are so high, that you should assume that when you are out and about in public in an indoor space, that there’s some virus present,” Morrow said.
Since the virus outbreak began in March 2020, it has contributed to the death of 538 people in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts.
Morrow stressed that while vaccines cannot provide total immunity from the virus, they can help lessen the severity of its symptoms.
“Fully vaccinated people are far, far less at risk of getting severe disease than someone who is unvaccinated,” she said.
Since the onset of the pandemic in March 2020, there have been 1,857 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Alleghany County. Sixty deaths in Alleghany County have been attributed to the virus. Covington has seen 694 confirmed cases and 14 deaths have been reported. Bath County has reported 400 COVID cases and 14 deaths.
In Bath, 53.8 percent of the adult population has received at least one COVID vaccine. Bath County is part of the Central Shenandoah Health District.
