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May 13, 2020 | Vol. 19, No. 20 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | 50¢ Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
Dr. Rebecca Sutter, left, and nurse Bridget Jennison, right, of George Mason University’s Mason and Partners Clinic, administer a COVID-19 test on a patient at their drive-thru testing site in Manassas Park. The clinic serves both uninsured and underinsured residents. PHOTOS BY DELIA ENGSTROM
Clinic sees high demand for free COVID-19 tests
Workers, many Hispanic, seek tests
Hospitalizations by Ethnicity - Prince William
Hispanic or Latino
Hispanic or Latino: 190 or 58.5%
Not Hispanic or Latino
Not Hispanic or Latino: 135 or 41.5%
By Daniel Berti
Times Staff Writer
Nurses and staff arrived at a Manassas Park clinic at 8 a.m. on a recent Tuesday morning. The doors wouldn’t open until 9, but a line of cars had already formed outside. The vehicles’ occupants were all waiting for the same thing: a free COVID-19 test. Dr. Rebecca Sutter, co-director of George Mason University’s Mason and Partners Clinics, said this is the new normal since limited free testing has become available for low-income and uninsured people living in and around Prince William County. A similar line of cars forms early each Tuesday and Thursday morning, the days the clinic provides drive-up testing, Sutter said. Wearing personal protective equipment, clinic staff approach each car as they pull up. The sick person in the vehicle is given several forms to fill out. Then a nurse administers a testing swab that will be sent to the state lab. The process takes about five to seven minutes per patient. They usually run out of testing kits by noon.
Construction, grocery store workers seek tests
Right now, the clinic has only 20 free testing kits available per day, which are provided by local health department, Sutter said. Around 15 tests are reserved by appointment for patients who meet specific criteria to receive a test, meaning they are both symptomatic and have been in contact with someone who has COVID-19. The remaining five
0
50
100
150
200
Not Reported: 14 SOURCE: VIRGINIA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH
are for walk-in patients given on a first come-first serve basis. “Most of the people that are showing up to get tested are frontline workers that are either working construction or in our grocery stores,” Sutter said. Sutter said that there is “absolutely” a correlation between what the clinic is seeing on the ground and newly released data showing that Hispanic and Latino residents are being hit hardest by the pandemic. “We’re 100% seeing correlations with the data that’s coming out. [Our patients] are primarily Hispanics or Latinos that are actively still working,” Sutter said. The Virginia Department of Health recently began releasing ethnicity data on its website that shows Hispanic and Latino residents make up an outsized share of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Prince William Health District. It’s the only health district in state where Latinos account for more than half of all admissions for the disease. As of Monday, May 11, Hispanic and Latino residents made up 58.5% of all COVID-19 hospitalizations in the Prince William Health District, or 190 of the 339 hospitalizations reported, even though they make up only 26% of the area’s total population. See TESTS, page 4
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See PrinceWilliamTimes.com for coronavirus updates
Northam delays NoVA reopening until May 29 By Daniel Berti
Times Staff Writer
Gov. Ralph Northam issued an executive order Tuesday allowing localities in Northern Virginia to delay entering phase 1 of the state’s reopening process until midnight on Thursday, May 28, to Gov. Ralph Northam allow the region more time to meet the health metrics. The new order, Executive Order 62, will allow the counties of Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, and Prince William, and the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax, Falls Church, Manassas, Manassas Park, as well as the Towns of Dumfries, Herndon, Leesburg, and Vienna to remain in “phase zero,” for an additional two weeks. “While the data show Virginia as a whole is are ready to slowly and deliberately ease some restrictions, it is too soon for Northern Virginia,” Northam said in May 12 press release. Phase 1 of reopening will allow the rest of the state to reopen non-essential retail, restaurants and hair salons with strict limitations. During phase 1, the ban on gatherings of 10 or more people will stay in place, and gyms and entertainment venues will remain closed. Restaurants will be allowed sit-down dining only outdoors and at 50% capacity. See REOPENING, page 3
Police academy: new gas pipeline could harm driving course By Daniel Berti
Times Staff Writer
A proposed natural gas pipeline planned to run through Prince William County has met an unusual opponent. The Northern Virginia police academy in Nokesville, which provides training to thousands of Northern Virginia police officers and deputy sheriffs, is warning the pipeline’s construction could disrupt its operations and jeopardize its precision driving course. The new pipeline, part of Virginia Natural Gas’ header improvement project, aims to add 24 miles of new gas pipeline in central and northern Virginia and two new compressor stations that will bring natural gas from the Transco pipeline in Prince William to the new C4GT power plant in Charles City County. See PIPELINE, page 2
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