The Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association (VHHA) is getting ready to turn the lights off on its COVID-19 Dashboard this week, as the federal emergency for the pandemic officially ends in May 2023.
VHHA noted the unprecedented scale of co-operation between Virginia’s hospitals and health care apparatus in creating the dashboard, one which millions of Virginians relied upon for accurate information in the very early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall, the dashboard has been viewed more than 7.7 million times and has been an invaluable resource to help health care providers, state and federal government partners, the public, and the news media gain a clearer picture of the impact of the pandemic on hospitals and the health care delivery system. Now, with the federal COVID-19 public health emergency slated to end May 11 and statewide coronavirus hospitalizations at relatively low levels, VHHA will discontinue publication of the data dashboard as of Thursday, April 27, 2023.
As of Wednesday, April 26th there are 147 patients in Virginia hospitals who currently are being treated for COVID-19, with 16 of those in intensive care and zero receiving ventilator support. Nearly 140,000 Virginians were hospitalized and discharged due to COVID-19.
One of the early concerns during the pandemic was the possibility of Virginia’s hospitals being overwhelmed with COVID patients, resulting in a lack of ICU beds and forcing the health care system to move towards triage.
Given the combination of a speedy vaccine due to Operation Warp Speed, common sense practices by Virginians themselves, and several mitigation techniques, Virginia’s health care system never had to realize many of the fears which became real in places such as New York.
VHHA was formed in 1926 to represent the concerns of the health care community in Virginia, and continues to be a non-partisan resource for Virginia policy makers in Richmond and beyond.