To the Fairfax County Community,
Today, Governor Northam announced that Northern Virginia will be joining the rest of the state in the first phase of reopening on Friday, May 29. My regional colleagues and I sent a second letter to him over the weekend with the metrics and data from our Northern Virginia Health Directors. The data shows that our region meets four of the significant criteria set by Governor Northam to reopen safely.
The criteria we have met are:
- A downward trend of positive tests for over 14 days
- A downward trend of hospitalizations for over 14 days
- An increased capacity for testing
- Sufficient hospital beds and ICU capacity
One of the two areas we don’t meet is contact tracing, but we are finalizing a contract this week to provide recruitment and staffing for the hundreds of contact tracers and investigators that we will need to increase our capacity. The goal is to have the team ready in June. The other area we don't meet is a sustainable supply of PPE. Although, we have sufficient supply for hospitals, we are still working to increase in other areas and hope the Governor will be able to help us do that. Our procurement team continues to work creatively and to monitor the supply chain to ensure we can make the needed purchases.
I share our community’s desire to reopen our businesses in the safest way possible. I am also committed to making sure our vulnerable communities are protected. Below, you will find updates on how we are meeting those needs. Fairfax County has made significant preparations and is ready to move to phase one safely. We will continue to monitor our local statistics to ensure Fairfax County doesn’t see spikes in cases and be transparent with the public on our progress. You can find the County's case data here.
See below for the full May 26 edition. For the resources mentioned in past newsletters, visit my website. If you have a friend who would like to sign up for this newsletter, they can do so here.