Health officials sounded the alarm again Wednesday as the Roanoke regional death toll reached 1,000 fatalities from COVID-19.
Infections are rising and officials expect to soon reinstate the strong recommendation to wear a mask in indoor public places.
Cynthia Morrow, director of the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts, called it “very likely” the community risk level would be elevated to high in the next few weeks.
The region is currently registering a level of low or medium, depending on the community, making masking optional but advisable for those at higher-risk and those around them. The government adjusts the level according to case counts and hospitalizations and a few other trends.
The death toll from COVID-19 infections since the public health crisis began in early 2020 reached 1,000 Wednesday in the two health districts Morrow supervises. That’s the number of people who have died directly and indirectly as a result of the illness in Alleghany, Botetourt, Craig and Roanoke counties and the cities of Covington, Roanoke and Salem, officials said.
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“COVID has just been devastating and we’re seeing that in today’s report of 1,000 deaths,” she said.
Morrow said the figure is “a very grim milestone,” but not something that hadn’t been expected to occur. She encouraged vaccination and paying attention to personal risk factors and community conditions.
Data for health districts is widely available, but because those districts vary in the number of residents, viewing a community’s death rate can give a clearer picture of the loss of life.
In the Roanoke area, the death rate ranges from 294 deaths per 100,000 residents in Botetourt County to 660 deaths per 100,000 residents in Alleghany County, according to online records. The death rate in the New River Valley ranges from 157 deaths per 100,000 residents in Montgomery County to 410 deaths per 100,000 residents in Pulaski County, online records show. The statewide death rate is about 425 per 100,000 residents and the toll is 20,030 deaths.
Although the virus is still taking lives, new cases reported in the past week totaled 666, a situation much improved from the January peak of the omicron-variant phase when officials often counted 600 new cases discovered daily. Twenty-seven people with the infection are in hospitals, versus 200 at one time during the earlier peak.
In addition, there is much more immunity in the community — and greater access to anti-viral drugs and other treatments, Morrow said.
But it is too soon to lower one’s guard completely, officials stressed.
“As much as we want to wish it away, it is still very much a part of our ecology,” she said.
Health officials also used their weekly news conference Wednesday to also discuss hepatitis A. Officials have recorded 58 cases in the Roanoke City and Alleghany Health Districts, up from 56 as of last week, indicating an unusually high amount of the disease compared to past years.
As reported, those infected included one employee at each of two area restaurants. Neither person handled ready to eat food, investigators found, leading officials to say the risk of a diner catching the disease from the restaurant visit was very low at the establishments, according to the health district officials.
However, the health department has released the dates when the infected workers worked and say the infection can take up to 50 days to take hold.
Those dates for Tuco’s Taqueria Garaje on Salem Avenue are May 3 to May 15. For Luigi’s Italian Gourmet on Brambleton Avenue, the dates are April 30 and May 1, 3, 6, 8 and 12.