Virginia's Phase One business reopening plan began today. Some of the steps include allowing restaurants to serve customers in outdoor seating areas, allowing non-essential retail stores to operate at 50% capacity, and allowing indoor worship services, also at 50% capacity. All operations continue to have social distancing and sanitizing requirements.
The City of Richmond and Accomack County on the Eastern Shore have joined several Northern Virginia localities in delaying their Phase One openings for at least two more weeks.
Gov. Ralph Northam says there are now 215 coronavirus testing sites around the state including hospitals, health care centers, free clinics and pharmacies. That is compared to just 58 sites three weeks ago. Northam says an additional 52 testing sites are being lined up.
The state lab has sent 500 tests to the Health Wagon in Wise to help with testing in Southwest Virginia.
The Virginia Department of Health has been using two types of testing, a nasal swab test and an antibody blood test. The nasal swab test shows if a patient is currently infected with coronavirus while the antibody blood test shows if the patient once had the virus.
Northam says that the two tests provide different information, so the VDH will now report the numbers on each type of test separately rather than combined.
State Finance Secretary, Aubrey Layne, says the state has seen a $700 million revenue shortfall since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, with a total $1 billion shorfall expected by the end of June.
Layne hopes that with the Phase One business reopenings, revenue sources such as state sales tax and employee payroll withholding will increase. The state also expects to bring in more revenue after the June 1 state tax filing deadline.
Layne also said that the state is beginning to disburse $650 million in federal aid to local governments.
More on this story from our media partner, ABC 13 - WSET.