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COVID Blog: Maryland reports first coronavirus death of child under 10

Death marks the first in the DMV. Meanwhile, health officials look toward preparing for a vaccine.

WASHINGTON — It’s Monday, November 30, and in Maryland, the state department of health has now reported its first death of a child under the age of 10 from the virus.

It’s the first reported death of a child between the ages of 0-9 in the entire DMV. Maryland had until this point reported just three deaths among juveniles ages 10-19, and Virginia had reported only 1.

The death comes as Maryland is taking a series of measures to combat the recent surge in cases, including rolling most restrictions in the state back to their Phase 2 levels.

In case you’re in a hurry and just looking for the numbers, here’s how things look today:

  • DC  In D.C., the city’s daily coronavirus case rate continues to climb. That metric is now at 25 cases a day per 100,000 people – just 2.5 cases below its all-time high. It’s also almost twice where D.C. was at on November 9 when that metric began to spike rapidly.
  • Maryland – Maryland has reported around 1,600 new cases of the coronavirus for each of the past two days – breaking a week-long streak of more than 2,000 cases a day. Unfortunately, on Tuesday the state also reported 32 new deaths from the virus. That’s its highest count in a single day since June.
  • Virginia – Virginia is now averaging 2,403 new cases of the coronavirus a day – another all-time high. The commonwealth reported 37 deaths from the virus on Tuesday, which is its highest single-day count in a month.

How are things in the DMV?

Case numbers were down across the board on Monday – although that’s almost certainly attributable to a drop in testing over the holiday weekend. In D.C., for example, the city reported nearly 13,000 coronavirus tests the day before Thanksgiving – an all-time high – and then just 5,000 tests a day on Saturday and Sunday.

In Virginia, the commonwealth reported the results of more than 30,000 tests last Monday, and then less than 14,000 on Saturday.

Credit: Jordan Fischer
D.C. experienced a record-high spike in coronavirus testing just before the Thanksgiving weekend.
Credit: Jordan Fischer
Virginia, like the rest of the DMV, saw coronavirus testing drop precipitously during the holiday weekend.

The net result is that cases appear to be momentarily declining. Because of both the temporary slowdown in testing results turnaround caused by the glut of pre-holiday testing and the 14-day window for coronavirus symptoms to appear, we likely won’t have a clear picture of how the holiday weekend has affected already surging case numbers until the beginning of next week.

Meanwhile, health officials in the DMV are already looking ahead at when a coronavirus vaccine may be available. Maryland has purchased five ultra-cold freezers in preparation for storing Pfizer’s vaccine. In D.C., the city health department thinks there’s already sufficient storage capacity – but worries it will only get a fraction of the doses necessary to inoculate its health care workers.

In Virginia, Gov. Ralph Northam told NPR’s Sarah McCammon last week that he expects the commonwealth will receive around 70,000 doses in the first round of distribution – enough to vaccinate roughly 0.8% of the state.

What I’m keeping an eye on this week

I’m going to be digging into the DMV’s vaccine distribution plans. As those are still being developed, stay tuned throughout the week for more.

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