A group of Northern Virginia elected leaders have submitted a letter to Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam urging that he permit the region to enter a Phase 1 re-opening.
The region was held back from the designation assigned to most other regions of the commonwealth because instances of the spread of the Covid-19 virus remained on an upward trajectory in the area.
But that trend has now reversed, the leaders wrote in their letter.
Jeff McKay, the chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, also penned his own letter making the same request.
In it he wrote, “Northern Virginia’s Health Directors tell me that we have met four of the critical criteria required to move forward to Phase I of Governor Northam’s plan to reopen.
“One of the two areas we don’t meet is contact tracing, but we are finalizing a contract hopefully this week to provide recruitment and staffing for the hundreds of contact tracers and investigators that we will need to increase our capacity of contract tracing.
“The other is PPE and we have sufficient supply for hospitals, but are working to increase in other areas and hope the governor will be able to help us do that.
“My colleagues and I have provided this information to the Governor and look forward to hearing his decision based on that data.”
He added, “I share our community’s desire to reopen our businesses in the safest way possible. Fairfax County has made significant preparations should the governor decide that Northern Virginia has met his criteria to reopen this Friday. Regardless, we will continue to monitor our local statistics to ensure Fairfax County doesn’t see spikes in cases and be transparent with the public on our progress.”
