Coronavirus cases classified as "active" and "non-active" in Harrisonburg and Rockingham

As test numbers spike across Virginia, a big question we all have is "how many people are recovered from COVID-19?"

Recovery information is not required to be sent to the Virginia Department of Health, so there is no accurate way to track that data for every single confirmed case.

However, in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, cases are now being classified as "active" and "non-active."

"I worked with our own Central Shenandoah Health district to talk about if there is a way to at least come up with an approximation," said Paul Helmuth, the Deputy Emergency Coordinator in Harrisonburg. "We felt a safe method was to go out 21 days."

Under this definition, within 21 days of a positive test, the case is considered active. After those 21 days, the case then becomes in-active.

"If you look at CDC guidelines, a person is infectious from the time of symptoms plus seven days," he said.

According to this

, there are more than 500 active cases in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County and less than 100 non-active cases.

A large spike in those active cases came from the outbreak at the Accordius Health long term care facility on April 15th.

As for the situation at Accordius, Helmuth said the facility is slowly getting back to normal.

"They are no longer having as many sick people as they did during the response phase of the emergency," he said. "They don't require as many resources outside of the facility to help them."