Henrico second in state in COVID-19 deaths

After reporting the most COVID-19-related deaths in Virginia throughout most of the pandemic, Henrico County Friday fell to second, trailing only Fairfax County's 89 fatalities, according to the Virginia Department of Health. Henrico's death total climbed by three to 86.

Although most of those fatalities have occurred among residents of senior living facilities (including 49 at the Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center), at least seven have occurred among other county residents, Henrico Health Director Danny Avula told the Citizen Wednesday.

The county’s confirmed case count climbed past 700 Thursday (third in the state behind Fairfax and Prince William counties in Northern Virginia), and as testing expands countywide, the percentage of those cases that are related to senior living communities declines. Avula estimated that about one-third of all confirmed cases in the county now are from senior communities – down from about about half not much more than a week or so ago.

Little is known publicly about how the virus may be spreading in the county – or where those who have it live. Avula and his staff have been geomapping available data to create a heat map of cases locally, but he said that for several reasons, he’s reluctant to release that data once it’s organized.

“There’s sensitivity to it just because I don’t want to falsely reassure people that just because it’s not in you’re neighborhood, you’re safe,” he said. Conversely, data showing larger case totals from senior communities might scare residents who live nearby, when in reality those outbreaks aren’t likely to affect them at all, he said.

Contact tracing requires more help
Avula’s staff has personally contacted nearly all the Henrico residents known to have the virus and conducted contact tracing to learn more about where they’ve been and who they may have been in close contact with for more than 15 minutes, he said. During the outbreak’s early days, the four epidemiologists on his staff were able to handle those calls themselves. Now, with 40 or more new cases every day – numbers that are all but certain to grow in the coming weeks – the office is challenged to keep up.

So, officials have trained 16 nurses to handle the duties, as well, Avula said. His office (which also serves the city of Richmond) is beginning to use some volunteers who have signed up through the Virginia Medical Reserve Corps, too.

Contact tracing is important in the control of any infectious disease, Avula said, because it allows health officials to contact anyone who may be at risk of developing an illness before they have the chance to spread it further. But there’s also no way to know if an infected person is being honest with officials, he said.

“What we’re finding is that most people [who are infected] have been pretty limited [in their travels] to their home and work,” he said. “But there is also uncertainty with that, because there’s a fair amount of stigma if you’re not complying [with stay-at-home guidelines.] So we’re limited to what they’re willing to disclose.”

About 100 people in Henrico are hospitalized with COVID-19, and while Avula said Wednesday that he wasn’t personally aware of each individual case, he said he’s seen no indication that any of them were younger, healthy people. Most, he said, were older or had underlying health problems, or both.

As of Thursday, 83 of those hospitalized were 50 or older, according to the VDH, while seven were in their 20s or 30s. Of those hospitalized, 56 were black and 38 were white.

McEachin urges study to address 'racial health disparities'
Overall, women account for significantly more of Henrico’s cases – nearly 60 percent – but the infected men are more likely to require hospitalization (in 18 percent of all cases, compared with just 10 percent of women who are infected).

Sixty-eight of Henrico’s 83 deaths have occurred in people 70 or older. Forty-three of the dead were women. Forty-two of the victims were white and 37 black, according to the VDH.

Nationally, blacks seem to contract the virus at higher rates than other groups, and the trend is noticeable in Henrico, as well. Though blacks make up just less than 30 percent of the county’s population, they account for 42 percent of its COVID-19 cases. By contrast, whites comprise 57 percent of the population but account for just 38 percent of the virus cases (though the race of 15 percent of those with the virus in Henrico is not known).

A Harvard University study concluded that someone who lives for decades in a locality with high levels of fine particulate matter is 15 percent more likely to die from COVID-19 than someone who lives in an area with one unit less of that matter.

U.S. Representative Donald McEachin, whose Fourth District includes Eastern Henrico, believes that information merits federal action.

“While this data is disturbing and shocking, it should come as no surprise,” he wrote in a joint April 21 letter with fellow Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “For decades, environmental justice communities – including communities of color, low-income communities, and tribal and indigenous communities across the U.S. and U.S. territories – have suffered disproportionately from cumulative exposure to multiple pollutants, often without the necessary resources to respond to the impacts nor influence in the political process to promote equitable outcomes.

McEachin and Grijalva urged the immediate collection of “comprehensive demographic data. . . necessary to address racial health disparities” so that officials could allocate proper resources to the communities that need them most in the fight against COVID-19.

‘Desperate for some solution’
Testing in the county has become more accessible, at least for certain groups, in recent days. The health department conducted the first of many planned in-person events in at-risk communities in the county Tuesday, testing 22 residents of the Woodman West apartment complex who were exhibiting symptoms of the virus. (Avula was hoping to test many more, but he said bad weather and some bad timing may have kept some people away.) His office is scheduling similar testing at one or several similar communities in Henrico and Richmond each weekday for the next month.

Also on Wednesday, Henrico County officials began offering voluntary virus testing for the county’s public safety workers who are on the front lines of Henrico’s response. Those employees may drive through the testing site at Virginia Center Commons mall and be tested not only to see if they have COVID-19 but also to learn (through new antibody testing) if they’ve already had it.

The testing is being conducted by Dentrust Optimized Care Solutions, a Pennsylvania company. It’s the first time locally that antibody testing has been offered to a large group. Results are available within 15 minutes.

“I do applaud the county’s efforts to try to get ahead of the curve,” Avula said. “All of us are scrambling and desperate for some solution. It’s efforts like this that are going to help us get there.”

More private medical offices also are conducting testing, too. Patient First, for example, is now offering drive-through testing at several of its locations, including the one on Parham Road near I-64 in Henrico’s West End, for eight hours a day. Appointments are required and may be made by visiting patientfirst.com/coronavirus; the tests are free for those with insurance but slightly more than $140 for those who are paying on their own.