Arlington Board Chair Applauds Northam's Delay In Reopening NoVa

ARLINGTON, VA —Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey and other leaders from Northern Virginia joined Virginia Gov. Ralph Northman Wednesday via video conferencing to thank him for excluding the region from his phased reopening of the state. She noted that Northern Virginia accounts for more than half of the state's cases of COVID-19, the illness associated with the new coronavirus.

"The most responsible path forward for us is to maintain our current operating status until the Phase One criteria laid out by the governor are met for Northern Virginia," Garvey said, during Northam's press briefing Wednesday afternoon.

Northam confirmed the first reopening phase will start for much of the commonwealth on Friday, May 15. Northern Virginia will remain in what he calls "phase zero" with a two-week delay until some coronavirus-related restrictions will be eased.

The phase one reopening modifies the March 23 executive order that closed certain recreational and entertainment businesses and limited restaurants to takeout and delivery, as well as the March 30 stay-at-home order.

The phase one delay applies to nine of Virginia's 133 jurisdictions: Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County, Prince William County and the cities of Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, Manassas and Manassas Park.

These localities collectively have a population around 2.5 million compared to the state's 8.5 million, but state officials see a trend of Northern Virginia accounting for a large portion of new cases. As of Wednesday, 528 of the state's 946 new cases are in Northern Virginia, representing about 55.8 percent. The potential start of phase one for Northern Virginia is Friday, May 29.

Over the next two weeks, Northern Virginia officials will be focusing on improving the criteria in the following areas to determine whether it's safe to reopen their localities:

• Downward trend of positive test results and hospitalizations of a period of 14 days
• Sufficient hospital beds and intensive care capacity
• Increasing and sustainable supply of personal protective equipment, such as masks, respirators, gloves and gowns
• Increased testing and tracing.

According to Garvey, local public health directors say all of these metrics are either unmet in Northern Virginia or can't be determined based on available data.

As of Wednesday morning, Arlington County has 1,460 COVID-19 cases, 300 hospitalizations, and 69 deaths due to the illness. Compared to Tuesday's numbers, Arlington saw an increase of 44 cases, 12 hospitalizations and three deaths.

Arlington did take a big step Tuesday to improve one of the metrics being used to determine when the county should reopen. The Arlington Department of Health, the Virginia Hospital Center, and the Arlington Free Clinic opened the county's first walk-up COVID-19 testing site at Arlington Mill Community Center (909 South Dinwiddie St).

The Arlington Free Clinic provides health care for lower-income, uninsured Arlington residents, and many of whom don't have access to a vehicle that could take them to the county's drive-thru testing site on North Quincy Street.

"Many of their employers were requiring them to have testing done before they got on the work site, so we realized that was a barrier," said Nancy White, president of the Arlington Free Clinic. "We're so excited to be partnering with Arlington County as well as Virginia Hospital Center in this initiative to help bring equity to low-income people in Arlington who don't have access to cars."

The walk-up site will operate weekdays between 1-5 p.m.

"The hours of this site were designed to accommodate people who were working construction that had to go into work early that could come in later in the day to get tested, as well as those who live in this area that can walk up that are living in crowded conditions," White said.

Patients looking to be tested must call 703-558-5766 beforehand to make an appointment.

"We're seeing a really a high incidence of COVID-19 in the Hispanic community and the immigrant community at large," White said. "So, it's really important that we have this site here."

Also see ...

• Virginia Reopening Starts Friday, NoVA Leaders Speak On Delay
• Coronavirus: NoVA Accounts For 55.8 Percent Of New Cases
• Arlington Opens Walk-Up Coronavirus Testing Facility
• Arlington Lab Collects 1,484 Coronavirus Samples In First 30 Days