New COVID cases rise for fourth straight day in Henrico

Henrico County reported 235 cases of COVID-19 Monday, an increase of more than 50 cases from Sunday’s total, according to data from the Virginia Department of Health. The county’s seven-day daily average of new cases continues to decrease, reaching 178 cases, but its decline is beginning to slow as cases have increased for four straight days.

Henrico also reported one new hospitalization and no new deaths related to the virus, both lower than the average daily counts of three and two, respectively.

Each day, more vaccinations are becoming available to Henrico citizens. As of Monday, the VDH reported that 21,344 vaccines had been administered in the county. Nearly 3,100 people in the county have been fully vaccinated, receiving both necessary doses for full vaccination.

Since Jan. 22, there have ben more than 3,500 PCR testing encounters reported in Henrico and more than 1,000 rapid testing encounters.

Henrico’s PCR testing positivity percentage as of Jan. 21 was 11%, while its rapid testing positivity percentage as of the same day was 9.9%

In total, Virginia now has administered more than 522,000 of the 1.1 million doses of vaccine it has received since mid-December – about 47% – averaging nearly 22,000 daily. That percentage is up from 36% on Thursday, when Virginia ranked 49th out of 50 states in terms of percentage of available doses administered.

The most updated Centers for Disease Control numbers (through Sunday) show Virginia as 50th, having distributed 42% of the doses it had received. It’s unclear where the state will rank when the new totals are reflected. On Sunday, 35 states were shown to have administered at least half of the vaccine doses they’d received.

– Tom Lappas contributed to this article