Thereâs some good news in terms of decreasing numbers of new COVID-19 cases in the Fredericksburg area, and bad news regarding highly contagious variants of the virus and younger people getting sick and dying.
First, the good news, because everyone needs some after 14 months of dealing with this pandemic. New cases have continued to fall for two weeks, signifying a downward trend. The average for the last seven days has been 55 new cases a day compared with 62 the week before and 111 the week before that, according to the Virginia Department of Health.
The bad news is new infections are plateauing higher than health officials would like, said Mary Chamberlin, public relations specialist with the Rappahannock Area Health District. It includes Fredericksburg and the counties of Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford.
When Dr. Kurt Graham realized the âperilously lowâ vaccination rate at his facility, he implored his co-workers to take a shot.
Heâs the medical director at Encompass Health Rehabilitation Hospital of Fredericksburg, which deals with patients recovering from strokes or physical deterioration after long hospital stays.
He learned on Monday that only about 42 percent of Encompass staff had been vaccinated, a rate comparable to what heâs heard anecdotally for health care workers at hospitals and nursing homes in the Fredericksburg area. He immediately penned a letter to staff, saying he was reluctant to ask them to step outside their comfort zone, but even more worried about seeing them or patients hospitalized with COVID-19.
The doctor said he knew he looked like an idiot, standing outside his office holding a handmade sign announcing a âCOVID-19 vaccine.â
But ever since Dr. Rosier Dedwylderâs practice in Dahlgren started administering the vaccineâ50 shots every Monday from March 22 onâhe and his staff made sure every dose landed in an arm.
Then last week, someone canceled late in the day, and the staff scrambled to find a replacement. Dedwylder sees patients, not only from King George and neighboring Caroline and Westmoreland counties, but also those over the bridge in southern Maryland.
The notion of one dose going to waste struck the medical team particularly hard, especially with the news coming out of India. People were dying outside hospitals because oxygen wasnât available, and there were horrible photos of multiple victims of the virus being burned on funeral pyres. COVID-19 has claimed more than 3,000 victims there each day for the last week.