2 Years of COVID In VA: How Has Your Life Changed?
VIRGINIA — Two years of the coronavirus pandemic have brought face mask debates, school upheaval, businesses and workers struggling to survive, and 18,536 deaths in Virginia alone as of Monday. The second COVID-19 anniversary is nearly here.
Patch wants to know how our readers have coped during the pandemic. What have you mourned or celebrated, what financial impacts did you face, what kept you going?
We've created a survey asking how the pandemic has affected you, click here to fill out the survey. If you are willing to talk to an editor, you can share your contact information with Patch; it will be kept confidential.
The survey is not meant to be a scientific poll, with random sampling and margins of error, but is meant only to gauge the sentiments of our readers in an informal way.
The World Health Organization declared coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, 2020.
March 7, 2020, is when state officials confirmed the first cases of the respiratory virus had sickened Virginia residents. Within days, life was turned upside down as events were canceled, businesses shuttered — some for months, some forever — schools tried to teach students via video, and face masks and toilet paper were in short supply.
By early 2021 vaccines were rolling out across the country, and Virginians began to gather again at ballgames, restaurants and school events. Summer saw travel skyrocket as families got out of the house, and then the delta variant of the coronavirus sent cases, and hospitalizations, soaring again.
That was followed over the holidays by a surge tied to the omicron variant, with cases finally falling.
On Feb. 28, Virginia's positivity rate was 2.78 percent, one of the lowest rates in the country, according to the state's COVID dashboard. The state has seen 754 cases in the last 24 hours.
On Monday, the state's positivity rate was 7.3 percent.
In the past 48 hours, 89 COVID deaths were reported since Saturday. No death data was reported Sunday.
The seven-day average of COVID fatalities in Virginia is also 89 deaths.
To date, the Commonwealth has seen 1,636,510 COVID cases and a total of 47,258 hospitalizations.
In a sign that the country is shifting to living with the virus, the Biden administration loosened federal COVID-19 mask guidance Friday as infection rates return to pre-omicron variant levels around the country.
The change means most Americans live in areas where federal guidelines say they're not required to wear masks indoors.
Face masks will be optional starting March 1 for public school students across Virginia due to state law. Lawmakers added an emergency clause to a bill in the state legislature prohibiting school districts from requiring students to wear masks in the classroom, which Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed into law.
Prior to the passage of the law, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit Feb. 7 brought by a group of parents in Chesapeake who wanted the court to suspend Youngkin's executive order that made mask-wearing optional at public schools in the state.
The ruling comes after an Arlington County circuit court judge ruled Youngkin did not have authority to replace the judgment of local school boards in setting policy for reducing the spread of COVID-19 among students, teachers and other school employees.
This article originally appeared on the Falls Church Patch
