WASHINGTON — It’s Wednesday, December 23, and hard-hit Montgomery County – where the coronavirus pandemic in the DMV began – is finally receiving its first doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
In March, the first cases of COVID-19 in the Capitol Region were reported in Montgomery County. Since then, nearly 43,000 county residents have contracted the virus. That’s more cases than Wyoming, New Hampshire, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont.
Of those 43,000 cases, more than 1,000 have died – giving Montgomery County the highest death toll in the DMV.
While initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine arrived in Maryland last week, Montgomery County hadn’t yet received any. That changed on Wednesday with the arrival of a small number of doses of the newly approved Moderna vaccine.
The county says the initial shipment will go to its “core team of public health clinicians” who will be responsible for vaccinating residents across the county. Those clinicians include county Health Officer Dr. Travis Gayles, who will be receiving the vaccine Wednesday afternoon.
Once more doses are available, the county says it will be following the vaccine priority designations outlined by Gov. Larry Hogan:
- 1A: Frontline health care workers, staff and residents of nursing homes, and first responders
- 1B: Essential workers and residents over the age of 75
- 1C: Individuals over the age of 65
In case you’re just here for the numbers, here’s where the DMV stands today:
- D.C. reported 326 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday and 7 new deaths. That’s more than twice the number of cases the city reported on Tuesday and its highest single-day count in almost three weeks.
- Maryland reported 2,465 new cases of the coronavirus on Wednesday and 49 new deaths. The state has now averaged more than 40 deaths a day from the virus for nine days straight.
- Virginia reported 4,652 new cases of the coronavirus – a new record high – and 55 new deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday.
How are things in the DMV?
I usually go through the DMV alphabetically, but let’s mix it up and start with Virginia, which today set a new single-day high with 4,652 new cases of the coronavirus. That’s more than 250 cases higher than its previous record (set two weeks ago).
The commonwealth is continuing to see its seven-day average case count rise, even as it’s begun to fall in D.C. and Maryland. And while coronavirus-related deaths are still rising rapidly in all three jurisdictions, they’re going up fastest in Virginia – up 50% in just the past two weeks. As of Wednesday, Virginia is averaging 36 new deaths a day from the virus (Maryland is averaging 42 deaths a day, a 23% increase from two weeks ago).
In Maryland, the (minor) progress the state had been making on hospitalization numbers has been almost entirely erased over the past several days. In four days the state added 141 new COVID-19 patients to hospital beds, bringing the total statewide to 1,776 Marylanders hospitalized with the virus. That’s just 23 below Maryland’s all-time high. And of those 1,776 patients, more than 400 are currently in the ICU.
I wrote a fair bit about some of the major metrics in D.C. yesterday. Suffice it to say: They haven’t improved. The one primary metric that has been improving is the city’s average case rate per 100,000 residents – which is down from its all-time high, but still above where the District was at during the peak of the first wave in May.