Botetourt Covid-19 report on August 18

August 18, 2020 Cathy Benson

The VDH site is reporting 222 cases today. (You will note later on in this Dr. O’Dell is reporting 210) Last week Botetourt had 215 cases and 16 hospitalizations and 7 deaths. This week we have 222, 18 hospitalizations and 7 deaths.

Remember these are cumulative totals since March. Our Increases since June 9 are 179 case increase. Since August 4th when we had 192 cases, the total of active cases has increased by 30 in 14 days. Active cases are defined from positive test until a negative test.

Quarantine is generally 14 days if you have been exposed.

Since we have consistently been using the figures from VDH we will stick with those. An explanation for differences is in Dr. O’Dell’s report

The following figures come from The Roanoke City-Alleghany Health District:

2,305 COVID-19 cases in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts
150 are currently active (18 are new in the past 24 hours)
Alleghany County: 64
Botetourt County: 210
Covington: 20
Craig: 23
Roanoke City: 1,208
Roanoke County: 629
Salem: 128
Unknown: 23
32 COVID-19 related deaths
21 people currently hospitalized
The Health District is currently working on 6 outbreaks

You can hear more about the latest situational update in Dr. O’Dell’s weekly press briefing by clicking here. Attached is an article describing the role of gatherings and parties in the local spread of COVID-19.

Additional COVID-19 resources:

The Roanoke City and Alleghany Health District websites have created a COVID-19 RCAHD Local Data and Resources webpage on both of our websites below. Here you can access a data presentation each week, looking back at the COVID-19 data since March:

Purpose of this webpage:

All case data are laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 that we extract from our live Virginia Electronic Disease Surveillance System (VEDSS) and freeze once a day. The health department’s epidemiological team uses this data to initiate case investigations and contact tracing for our community. Although some people are tested multiple times, this data has been corrected to reflect unique cases. Individuals who test multiple times are not counted multiple times.

We strive for transparency and accuracy in our data. As individual cases are investigated by public health, more complete information may be learned that could lead to corrections in details of cases or deaths. Some examples of corrections or updates that may lead to data changes include:

Update or correction of case’s home address, resulting in a change to their location of residence to another county or state,
Correction to laboratory results,
Correction to a case’s status from confirmed to unconfirmed (for example, blood tests detecting antibodies are considered unconfirmed; only test results detecting the virus causing COVID-19 are marked as confirmed),
De-duplication or merging and consolidation of case records of a single individual,
Update of case’s demographic information from “missing or unknown” to complete information.

Cases are also reported to the central office of the Virginia Department of Health and shared on the COVID-19 Data Portal Link. The data reported at the local level is the most up-to-date, however the state level data is counting the same cases with the same methodologies, and differences in the local and state data will eventually catch up to one another.

Kristin Adkins, Population Health Manager, Roanoke City & Alleghany Health Districts

Here is a helpful chart based on one in Japan, but from the State of Florida recently.

It would be smart to look at what you should be doing to avoid catching or spreading this AIRBORNE disease.