Fairfax County announces first death from coronavirus. Monastery member is identified as D.C.'s first covid-19 death.

A Prince George’s County Public Schools employee who works at the Oxon Hill Staff Development Center has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a news release from the school system.

Schools chief executive Monica Goldson said the employee did not have contact with students and is receiving medical treatment. The county’s health department has notified all employees who may have been in close contact with the person, according to the news release.

No additional information was provided about the condition of the employee.

A Fairfax County psychiatrist resigned Friday over what he called inadequate safeguards against novel coronavirus infection from patients at the county’s Merrifield Center for mental health treatment.

Jason Williams, who for two years has treated patients for the county’s Community Services Board, is among a growing number of health-care professionals to voice concern over continued interactions with patients without clear guidance. He said psychiatrists and other workers have been meeting with patients inside small counseling rooms, without masks or other protective gear.

University of Maryland officials announced Saturday that the school had confirmed its second case of coronavirus: a contract employee who works at the school’s health center and in the athletic department. The university’s first case, a student who had studied in Europe, was disclosed Friday.

School officials learned the positive virus test for the contract employee late Friday, according to a statement released to the campus community. “We immediately began notifying the individuals who we know came into direct contact with the individual and provided CDC guidance,” the statement said.

A man in his 60s who had been hospitalized for covid-19 in Fairfax County has died, Fairfax authorities said Saturday evening. He is the first reported coronavirus death in Fairfax, and the third in Virginia.

The man’s name and hometown were not released. The Fairfax County Health Department said he acquired the coronavirus “through contact with a previously reported case,” and that his cause of death was “respiratory failure as a result of covid-19.”

The Virginia Department of Health reported two deaths earlier in the week, both in the Tidewater area.

Loudoun County school officials announced Saturday that a second and third staff member have tested positive for the coronavirus, and the second member is Waxpool Elementary School Principal Michael Pellegrino.

The district announced Thursday that another Waxpool staff member had tested positive, the district’s first such test. Officials said Pellegrino agreed to make his identity public as the second infected member from Waxpool, and said he was not experiencing symptoms of the virus. The Loudoun County Health Department is now conducting a contact investigation for Pellegrino and expected to reach each person he may have come into contact with by phone on Saturday. School officials said the health department had already reached every individual known to have contact with the first staff member.

The Prince George’s County police said Saturday that beginning at midnight Monday officers will start taking nonviolent crime reports over the phone instead of in person in an attempt to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

A number of police departments around the country are adopting similar procedures as the number of first responders to test positive increases.

When individuals call 911 to report an incident, the operator will ask for details about the crime. If it if for a nonviolent offense, the operator will take a number and an officer will call to take a report.

The National Park Service on Saturday said too many people are visiting the cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin to maintain social distancing measures needed to prevent spread of coronavirus.

The park service, which oversees the Mall and Memorial Parks, discouraged people from viewing the trees, now in peak bloom, and will close parking to keep them away.

“As crowds increase at the Tidal Basin, it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain effective social distancing and keep an appropriate space from other visitors,” the park service tweeted. “We strongly urge anyone considering a visit to see the cherry blossoms to reconsider and to help prevent the spread of infectious diseases. ”

A member of the Franciscan Monastery of the Holy Land in America is the first known coronavirus death in the District, the monastery’s superior, Father Larry Dunham, said Saturday.

John-Sebastian Laird-Hammond, 59, had been battling leukemia for years, Dunham said. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) announced the District’s first death related to the virus on Friday but did not reveal the person’s identity.

Laird-Hammond had been at the monastery since the late 1980s, Dunham said, and has for the last 14 years run its day-to-day operations as the business manager. He had recently been approved for a transfer to an order in New York, where he was going to be involved in fundraising efforts for missions in Central America, Dunham said.