D.C. now has the highest coronavirus positivity rate in the country

The Washington, D.C., metro area has the highest coronavirus positivity rate in the country, Dr. Deborah Birx said at the White House press briefing on Friday. The region, which includes northern Virginia and several counties in Maryland, is of course the home to many who commute to work in the nation's capital.

Birx said that D.C. is followed in positivity rate by Baltimore, Chicago, and Minneapolis. "These are the places where we have seen really a stalling, or an increase of cases as in Minneapolis," she explained.

The D.C. metro area specifically has a rate of infection three times higher than the areas directly surrounding it. Governors in Maryland and Virginia actually began easing restrictions in their states last Friday, The Washington Post reports, while protestors gathered in Baltimore County on Friday to push for a faster reopening.

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For now, the District is holding its stay-at-home orders due to the alarming number of cases. Jeva Lange