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COVID Blog: Virginia & Maryland lagging behind at getting second doses into arms

While Virginia has improved its per capita vaccine rate, it's still ranked one of the last states in the nation for people getting second doses.

WASHINGTON — It’s Wednesday, February 3, and vaccinations in D.C. and Maryland seem to be bouncing back to normal after the beginning of the week’s winter weather.

Maryland in particular saw those numbers drop significantly, with the state reporting fewer than 10,000 vaccinations each day on Sunday and Monday – less than half its average over the prior week. Virginia managed to give out more than 30,000 vaccines each of those days, but did see a decline down to 21,000 shots reported on Wednesday. D.C. has been averaging around 1,600-1,800 shots a day, depending upon vaccine availability, and has reported around 1,000 new shots each day this week.

Maryland also hit a vaccine milestone today, with more than 100,000 people in the state now fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. That represents about 1.5% of the state. Despite having given out 300,000+ more doses of vaccine, Virginia has only fully vaccinated around 137,000 people – or 1% of its population.

Neither state is doing particularly well on getting those second doses out compared to the rest of the country. Only three states – Mississippi, Georgia and Nevada – are doing worse than Virginia, which reports about 18% of its vaccinated population having received both doses. Maryland is only slightly ahead of that at 20%. Tennessee leads the nation with nearly 42% of its vaccinated population now having received both doses, and D.C. is in the top half of the country with around 30%.

In case you’re just here for the numbers, here’s how things look today:

  • DC reported 61 new cases and 5 new deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday.
  • Maryland reported 942 new cases and 31 new deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday.
  • Virginia reported 2,959 new cases and 58 new deaths from the coronavirus on Wednesday.  

How are things in the DMV?

While Maryland’s below-average case numbers so far this week are probably mostly due to a weather-related drop in testing, they are part of a long-term downward trend the state has been seeing. As of Wednesday, Maryland is averaging 1,561 new cases of the virus a day – less than half of its all-time high average of 3,228 set on January 12. Though that’s something to celebrate, it’s worth noting that the current average is still higher than at any point before this wave of cases began.

Virginia is seeing a decline in cases as well – down 43% from two weeks ago – but it’s still averaging more than 3,500 new cases a day and deaths are actually up over that period. The commonwealth is now averaging just under 50 new deaths every day from the coronavirus.

D.C. is down too, it should be said, but seemed like it might be prepared to level out prior to this week’s weather. We’ll have a better idea this time next week about whether it’ll settle around 200 cases a day or continue its downward trend.

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