Fredericksburg Coronavirus Video Update May 27

Press release from the City of Fredericksburg:

May 27, 2020

As of noon today, there are now 1,381 positive cases in our Health District: Stafford has 657 cases, Spotsylvania 474 , King George 60 and Caroline 55. Here in Fredericksburg the cases have increased to 135. We have increased 28 cases since the last reporting period. We have 16 deaths reported in the health district. The rate of positive to tests is right at 14% in the Commonwealth. There are seven outbreaks in the Health District. There are 32 positive patients currently in the hospital in our health district as of this morning.

The statistics for the commonwealth are 275,074 tests conducted for the virus with 40,249 confirmed or probably for Covid-19. We have had 4,385 persons hospitalized at the time of investigation at the state level. Unfortunately, we have had 1,281 Virginians die as a result of the viral infection known as Covid-19.

There were 1,717,077 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. and of those 1,252,012 are active cases with 100,259 deaths resulting from total cases.

As you are probably aware by now, Governor Northam issued Executive Order #63 yesterday that has an effective date of this coming Friday, May 29 at 12:00am. The purpose of this order is the requirement of persons to wear face coverings while inside buildings. This is to help protect the population from and slow the transmission of the virus, Covid-19. This is based off recommendations of the CDC and the fact that a substantial number of individuals with coronavirus are asymptomatic or can spread the virus before they show symptoms of the disease.

• Effects all person age 10+
• Requires a face covering to cover the mouth and nose as described and recommended by CDC in all personal care and personal grooming businesses.
• All brick and mortar retail businesses of both essential and non-essential groups.
• Food and beverage establishments when permitted to reopen for indoor dining.
• Entertainment and recreation businesses once they are permitted to reopen to the public. Face coverings will also be required outdoors at these businesses if the social distancing of six feet from every other person cannot be maintained.
• All types of public transportation except where under federal jurisdiction or control.
• Any other indoor place shared by groups of people who are in close proximity to each other, not residences. Face coverings may be removed to participate in religious rituals.
• State and local government buildings when accessed for the purpose of securing public services with the exception of students in daycare or participating in-person classes in K-12 education or institutes of higher learning.
• All employees covered before in Executive Order #61 shall wear the face covering whenever working in customer facing areas.

Current enforcement is by the Virginia Department of Health. Read Executive Order #63 online here.

This press release was produced by the City of Fredericksburg. The views expressed here are the author’s own.