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A record 656 Virginians were being treated for COVID-19 in intensive care units Friday, with a near record number on ventilators, and the state's hospitals have only 135 adult ICU beds available. 

That report from the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association came as overall numbers continued to indicate the Omicron surge of the virus may be peaking across the state and in Northern Virginia.

Overall hospitalizations statewide hit a new high of 3,899 on Wednesday before falling slightly to 3,845 on Friday, the hospital association said. The number of ICU patients surpassed the 2021 record of 621 earlier this week, and the number on ventilators, 360, is approaching the 2021 record of 366.

Hospitalization numbers are not available specifically for Northern Virginia.

Statewide, a record 130,381 new cases were reported this week -- surpassing the prior record of 102,000, set the week before.  A daily record of 26,175 new cases reported was set Saturday, and the seven-day average hit a new peak Thursday at 18,781.6 before falling slightly Friday. The overall case increase of 27.2% was much less than it has been during the Omicron surge.  

In Northern Virginia, a record 39,383 new cases were reported this week -- up about 15% from the prior week's previous record of 34,117. The region also set a daily record Saturday with 8,368 new cases, and its seven-day average peaked Thursday at 5,931.1 before falling Friday.   

SOURCE: Virginia Department of Health

Northern Virginia's seven-day average remained nearly 4 1/2 times the level it was on this date in January 2021, while the state's average is over three times the 2021 level.  

In its weekly update, the Biocomplexity Institute at the University of Virginia forecast that the current surge will peak around Jan. 23 and that cases could then fall rapidly.  All 35 of the state's health districts are currently experiencing a surge in cases, however, although reproduction rates have fallen slightly over the past week in most areas.  

The Virginia Department of Health has now reported 540 confirmed cases of the Omicron variant, with 260 of them in Northern Virginia.  The state number is up from 174 cases week earlier, and Omicron represented 85% of all cases tested for the week ending Jan. 1.  Only a small percentage of positive samples are tested for variants, and completing the testing and reporting results often takes a week or more. 

After several weeks of rapid increases, diagnostic test positivity rates generally stabilized this week, but at historically high rates.  The statewide rate seven-day average rate set a record of 36.2% this week, and the Prince William and Rappahannock health districts also set new records.  Test rates generally have not been this high since the early days of the pandemic in April 2020 when few tests were available. 

A record total of 343,524 diagnostic test results were reported statewide this week, far surpassing the prior weekly record of 230,000 in January 2021. 

The state reported  152 new COVID-related deaths this week. The Virginia Department of Health has said that because of a new method for accounting for COVID-related deaths, reports of new deaths are delayed several weeks.  Of this week's deaths, 16 were in Northern Virginia: seven in Fairfax County, four in Prince William County, three in Alexandria and one apiece in Arlington and Loudoun counties. 

SOURCE: Virginia Department of Health

Three new outbreaks with more than four cases were reported this week in Northern Virginia. The state health department changed its definition of an outbreak, effective Jan. 1, to include locations that have three or more connected cases, not two or more. The new outbreaks are: 

Four other previously reported outbreaks with more than four cases are listed as still being in progress:

The health department's dashboard tracking the number of breakthrough infections shows that between Jan. 17, 2021, and Jan, 8, 2022, 35,686 infections had been reported in fully vaccinated people in Northern Virginia, resulting in 97 deaths. 

Statewide, 110,185 such infections had been reported, or about 13.7% of the 801,000 overall cases reported in that time.  The health department says the data show that unvaccinated people are 4.4 times more likely to develop COVID-19 than fully vaccinated individuals and are 4.0 times more likely to die from COVID-19.  

The health department's vaccination dashboard shows that the average number of doses administered per day ticked up this week to about 31,000 as vaccine sites reopened after the early January snowstorms. Vaccinations were as high as 86,000 a day in late March, but had fallen to about 12,000 a day in mid-summer.   

As of Friday, about 14.41 million vaccine doses had been administered to Virginians, and third doses had been administered to over 2.29 million Virginia residents. Over 250,000 children ages 5 to 11 have now received at least one dose, representing about 34.6% of that age group.  

Overall, 78.4% of all Virginians have now received at least one dose of a vaccine, and 68.3% are considered fully vaccinated.

New Cases/Deaths (Seven days ending Friday, Jan. 14)

*Provided by Virginia Department of Health. The health department's COVID-19 data is updated each morning (Monday through Friday) by 10 a.m. and includes reports by local health agencies before 5 p.m. the previous day.

Statewide Hospital Data (as of Friday, Jan. 14):

Hospitalizations: 3,845 (up from 3,329 on Jan. 7)

Patients in ICU: 656 (up from 545 on Jan. 7 and new record high)

*Provided by Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association

For updated national and international COVID-19 data, visit the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus dashboard.

Editor's note: InsideNoVa is providing regular COVID-19 updates every week. For daily reports, visit the Virginia Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard. 

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