COVID-19 hospitalizations trending downward across Virginia

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - COVID-19 hospitalizations in the commonwealth are some of the lowest we have seen in months, but experts at UVA Health say they’re watching these trends closely before getting too excited.

The latest COVID-19 data out of UVA Health shows only 10 patients are in the UVA Medical Center with the virus. Two of those patients are in the Intensive Care Unit, while the other six are adults and two are children.

“Our number of patients hospitalized with COVID is lower than it’s been for several months now,” Doctor Bill Petri said Monday, March 27.

Dr. Petri says he has seen this pattern before, though.

“We also don’t just understand very much about the the seasonality of coronavirus. So the last two springs, we saw a dip in infections in the springtime. And then we got into like June, July, and August, you may remember it went back up again,” the doctor said.

That could be different this year, because Dr. Petri says they’ve not yet seen another variant of the virus- Omicron is still the dominant variant, and it has maintained that status for a while now.

“That’s part of the reason we’re in such good shape right now is because we all have some level of existing immunity to omicron [variant], either from vaccines or from having had the infection,” he said.

The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association is seeing those trends reflected across the commonwealth, too.

“In January of 2022, we were close to about 4,000 daily hospitalizations,” Julian Waker with VHHA said. “Two-hundred sixty-five as of today.”

Walker says overall COVID-19 hospitalizations have been on a pretty steady downward trajectory from the peak we saw this winter, too.

In order to keep to that trend, Dr. Petri reminds everyone to get their COVID-19 shots.

“If you get the booster, you’re getting additional immunity above like what you got with natural infection. So there’s still a really good reason to get vaccinated even though we are seeing a decline in hospitalization rates,” he said.

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