A year after the United States declared a public health emergency in response to the coronavirus, the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. surpassed 27 million as of Monday, Feb. 8. Here in Virginia, the number of new cases and deaths declined over the past week, although two highly contagious variant strains of the coronavirus have been identified in the state.
After a rough start, Virginia also is improving its rate of vaccine administration; as of Monday, 1.1 million people have received at least one of the two shots required for full inoculation out of 1.58 million vaccine doses the state has received, a rate of 69.9%, according to the Virginia Department of Health. As of Monday, the state was ranked ninth in the nation for its percentage of doses administered, according to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed by Becker’s Hospital Review. Virginia gave an average of 36,647 shots per day over the past seven days, VDH reported, and 10.5% of the state’s population have now received at least one shot.
