Deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic increased to 13 in Virginia Wednesday night with 101 more cases confirmed.
Dr. Lilan Peake, Virginia’s state epidemiologist said three deaths in the Old Dominion came at the Canterbury Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Henrico County, where patients and staff are infected.
Roanoke County now has infections, along with Radford city, Franklin, Bedford, Botetourt, and Washington counties.
Virginia’s virus infections now stand at more than 390. Nationally, the count stands at 68,573 infections at 6 a.m. EDT Thursday with 1,036 deaths while worldwide infections were 479.840 cases and 21,576 deaths.
However, the World Health Organization says 115,796 people worldwide had contracted the virus and recovered from it.
In Washington overnight, the Senate approved the $2.2 trillion coronavirus aid bill, called a “bailout” by some, that would provide direct payments of $1,200 to many lower-income taxpayers in the nation on a sliding scale that drops as income increases. The House has to approve the measure before sending it to the president, who has promised to sign it immediately.
The legislation specifies payments to American “taxpayers,” which are defined as anyone who has filed a return for 2019 or 2018 tax returns, which could leave those who don’t earn enough out of the loop. That affects many who primarily live on Social Security or SSI payments and have not filed returns in recent years.
The small business loan expansions are aimed at protecting payrolls of those operations and may not provide loan opportunities to those who are one-person operations. It will depend on how the Small Business Administration (SBA) defines the program.
Originally, the hope was to get payments out to individuals in April but delays in getting the deal approved and through Congress could delay that until May.