The Augusta County-Staunton-Waynesboro area has seen less than a third of the COVID-19 cases, less than a seventh of the hospitalizations, and less than a tenth of the deaths than Virginia as a whole.
This from an analysis of numbers from the Virginia Department of Health, updated Thursday.
There have been, to date, 221 cases reported in the county and two cities as of today’s VDH COVID-19 update.
That comes out to a rate of 181.5 cases per 100,000 population in the region.
Virginia, statewide, is seeing 560.7 cases per 100,000 population.
The VDH website has the local region at 11 cumulative hospitalizations, which works out to 9.0 hospitaliszations per 100,000 population.
Virginia’s statewide number is 58.1 hospitalizations per 100,000 population.
There have been two reported COVID-19 deaths total in the county and two cities, which is 1.6 deaths per 100,000 population.
The statewide number is 17 deaths per 100,000 population.
It has been noted that COVID-19 has been particularly lethal among seniors, especially those in nursing homes, which account for 56.4 percent of the deaths statewide (816 deaths, of the 1,445 total, as of today’s update).
The population of Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro has a higher concentration of seniors than the state as a whole.
From a review of Census figures, 17.8 percent of the population of the county and two cities is made up of those 65 and over.
The corresponding number statewide is 15.4 percent.
Key takeaways: the local region is older, thus theoretically more vulnerable to COVID-19, and yet is faring significantly better than the state as a whole.
Don’t let the local media fearmonger you into thinking otherwise.
Story by Chris Graham
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