SPORTS: Brentsville girls basketball is 8-1; Colgan hires Nathan Staples as AD. PAGES 11-12
January 6, 2021 | Vol. 21, No. 1 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | $1.00 Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
COVID-19 cases spike locally County sets all-time high for new COVID-19 cases added in a single day: 1,567
COURTESY ALISON BRADSHAW
The view from Interstate 95 exit 137.8, where New York resident Alison Bradshaw was stuck in her SUV overnight on Jan.3 to 4 with her husband and four children.
Nightmare on I-95
Heavy snow, icy conditions kept motorists stranded for hours By Daniel Berti and Jill Palermo Times Staff Writers
Stranded on Interstate 95 since about 10 p.m. Monday, Jan. 3, Alison Bradshaw had a message for Virginia officials Tuesday morning: “We need help!” “We need food and water. People need gas,” Bradshaw said at about 8:40 a.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 4, after being stranded on the roadway for more than 10 hours. She, her husband and their four kids – ages 10, 8, 5 and 4 – had spent the night in their SUV in the northbound lanes near the 138 mile marker, south of Fredericksburg. The family was traveling home to New York after a holiday trip in Florida. They’d spent Monday night in South Carolina and pulled off I-95 at about 9 p.m. Monday to get something to eat. The roads hadn’t been all that bad at that point, she said, and although they had heard about the storm in Virginia, they thought the roads would be cleared by the time they reached the state. But that didn’t happen. Bradshaw said they had yet to see a snowplow or any emergency vehicles while stranded, a situation that became especially scary when temperatures plunged into the teens overnight. Thankfully, Bradshaw said, her four kids
Snowfall totals:
• Manassas: 10.5 inches • Independent Hill: 10.2 inches • Montclair: 9.0 inches • Gainesville: 6.8 inches • Manassas: 5.7 inches • Manassas Park: 5.2 inches Prince William residents, businesses that lost power: 20,000+ mostly slept through the night. They turned the engine on and off periodically in an effort to keep warm. By morning, however, they had only two bottles of water to share among them and were getting worried. “It seems they were completely unprepared for this storm,” Bradshaw said of Virginia officials. “There’s no help for these people. There’s no movement.” Finally, just before 10 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 4, traffic began creeping forward. Eventually the family made it into Prince William County, where they finally saw signs of help: Firefighters were walking along the still-blocked southbound lanes, handing out water and supplies, she said. See I-95, page 4
Approved maps draw 2 local lawmakers into the same district, page 3
By Jill Palermo Times Staff Writer Both Virginia and Prince William County set records for the highest number of new COVID-19 cases reported in a single day during the past week, while the local community transmission rate nearly doubled to 1,343 cases per 100,000 residents. The transmission rate is 13 times what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers “high” – its most severe rating – which is anything more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents. In Prince William County, the number of new daily cases reported Friday, Dec. 31, surpassed the previous record set back in January 2021 for the first time. There were 1,567 new cases reported in the county on New Year’s Eve – an all-time high. Since then, daily cases have fallen to an average of about 1,000 a day – a 57% increase from the previous week. Meanwhile, the local percent-positivity rate on COVID-19 tests stood at 38.7% as of Wednesday, Jan. 5 – an all-time high since the pandemic began. The percent-positivity rate was a mere 7% in early December, according to the Virginia Department of Health. The ongoing surge in cases is worse in the Washington, D.C. area than in most parts of the country, according to the Washington Post, and is being blamed on the convergence of the more contagious omicron variant and the lingering delta variant. Local epidemiologists attribute the spike in local cases to everything from D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser’s decision to drop the city’s mask mandate in November to the D.C. area’s relatively high vaccination rate. While vaccines helped ward off cases of the delta variant, the shots have been less effective at stopping infections of the omnicron variant, experts say. Still, those who are both vaccinated and boosted are showing much milder symptoms than the unvaccinated, who continue to make up the vast majority of those hospitalized for COVID-19 in Virginia, according to VDH.
Hospitalizations
Hospitalizations are rising locally and statewide, however. On Jan. 5, a total of 2,965 people suffering from COVID-19 symptoms were hospitalized across the state, up about 30% from the previous week, according to the Virginia Healthcare and Hospital Association. Locally, 490 new hospitalizations were reported over the past week – about double the number reported the previous week. See COVID, page 2
Upcoming events: Free ice skating and other events, page 10
88 DULLES, VA