Two more Henry County residents have died of COVID-19. That news was revealed this morning in data from the Virginia Department of Health. When those deaths occurred is uncertain, because VDH validates cause in death reports before submitting the data. VDH tracks cases and deaths by residence. Scant details are released. These two deaths represent one-third of the six statewide reported today by VDH, and that’s now 35 residents of Henry County who have died from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. There have been 93 in the West Piedmont Health District. There also were 33 new cases across the district, with surging Franklin County adding 17 more to its total of 1,138. Henry County added 12, and Martinsville and Patrick County reported 2 each. There were no new hospitalizations….The big news this morning is that the drug company Pfizer reported that a vaccine it had in trial was 90% effective. This was tested internationally. The news sent markets soaring….The U.S. recorded 105,927 new coronavirus cases Sunday, the fifth day in a row that cases topped 100,000. Nearly all of the U.S. is seeing infections rise, with one emergency physician warning that the nation is “heading into the very worst of this pandemic.” The U.S. almost certainly will reach 10 million cases today, but it isn’t alone in hitting frightening new records. More than 50 million coronavirus cases have been reported worldwide, with the United Kingdom, France, Russia and Japan among the countries where cases are climbing….President-elect Joe Biden is expected to announce today the names of the dozen leaders who will serve on his coronavirus task force. CNN reported Saturday it will be led by former Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, former US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. David Kessler and Yale University’s Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith….The Virginia Department of Health reports this morning there have been 193,477 cases and 3,713 deaths statewide — up 6 from Sunday. Some 13,116 people have been hospitalized. Henry County has had 1,495 cases, with 149 hospitalizations and 35 deaths. Martinsville has had 518 cases, with 68 hospitalizations and 24 deaths. Patrick County has had 366 cases including 61 hospitalizations and 27 deaths. Franklin County has had 1,138 cases, 40 hospitalizations and 7 deaths. Danville has reported 1,340 cases (47 deaths), and Pittsylvania County has had 1,445 (17 deaths). Johns Hopkins University’s real-time map showed 50,517,420 cases worldwide and 1,257,922 deaths. In the U.S. there have been 9,973,563 cases and 237,584 deaths because of COVID-19.
(207) updates to this series since Updated
