Richmond’s COVID threat level lowered to ‘medium’ by CDC | Richmond Local News

The level of COVID-19 spread in the city of Richmond and Chesterfield County has fallen from “high” to “medium,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a sign the latest wave of COVID may be subsiding.

Henrico County remains in a level of high transmission.

Most of the state has returned to medium or low levels. Eleven localities are still rated high — including the city of Petersburg, Dinwiddie County, Lunenburg County and Halifax County in southern Virginia.

Hanover, Goochland, New Kent and Charles City counties are all at the medium level.

Across the state, the number of cases reported to the Virginia Department of Health has diminished slowly, from a daily average of 3,300 four weeks ago to 2,500 Friday.

Hospitalizations have dipped in the past two weeks, from 573 to 539.

While deaths remain low, they haven’t been eliminated. There was an average of nine daily COVID deaths in the state Friday.

The BA.212.1 variant is the dominant subvariant in the state, the CDC estimates, pushing out the older BA.2 and BA.1.1. The more-contagious BA.4 and BA.5 variants are growing and account for roughly 1 in 5 cases.

According to the University of Virginia’s Biocomplexity Institute, the state could experience a small surge of BA.4 and BA.5 in July, but it likely won’t exceed the delta surge last fall.

A study published recently in The Lancet reported that long COVID presents less risk in omicron cases than it did during the delta wave. During a study of delta cases, 11% resulted in long-COVID symptoms. The risk of long COVID during omicron has shrunk in half. Roughly 5% of cases in the study presented long-COVID symptoms.

All adults and children 6 months and older are now eligible for vaccines.