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Coronavirus

COVID-19 deaths continue as active cases decrease

CHARLESTON — While the overall number of COVID cases is decreasing in West Virginia, deaths in the state continue to mount. Gov. Jim Justice on Wednesday read the deaths of 85 West Virginians from COVID-19 that were confirmed since the Monday briefing, bringing the total lives lost in the state from the virus to 4,219. “We should be very respectful of others and loving neighbors, but at the same time more and more of us ought to go get vaccinated,” Justice said during a virtual news briefing with state reporters. “We need to learn more about it, and ease our fears the best ...

Youthful Jackson Countian succumbs to COVID-19

CHARLESTON – A 21-year-old man from Jackson County was among the confirmed deaths from the COVID-19 coronavirus in Wednesday morning’s pandemic update from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. Deaths also included a 52-year-old man from Wood County, an 80-year-old woman from Wood County, a 54-year-old man from Jackson County, a 50-year-old man from Jackson County, a 74-year-old woman from Wood County, a 56-year-old woman from Wood County and an 85-year-old man from Wood County, Seventy-four deaths were confirmed Wednesday morning, including 22 people in a ...

Judge sets Nov. 15 date for briefs in school mask lawsuit

PARKERSBURG — A temporary injunction was not granted this week in regards to the mask mandate for Wood County Schools. Court personnel said Tuesday Wood County Circuit Judge JD Beane has given both sides until Nov. 15 to file briefs in this matter to build their cases after a hearing was held Monday. The parents of three Parkersburg High School students filed suit recently to have Wood County Schools’ mask mandate declared illegal and unconstitutional. The lawsuit filed in Wood County Circuit Court on behalf of John R. Davis and Felsie C. Pierce claims the school district has ...

COVID-19 survivor encourages residents to get vaccinated

CHARLESTON — A COVID-19 vaccine skeptic and coronavirus survivor told his harrowing story of his fight with the virus Monday morning during Gov. Jim Justice’s pandemic briefing. Christopher Holmes, a COVID-19 survivor who spent 80 days in the hospital with an infection that put him on a ...

Six MOV residents among latest reported COVID-19 deaths

CHARLESTON — Six Mid-Ohio Valley residents, three of them from Wood County, were listed among the deaths attributed to COVID-19 by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources on Monday. A total of 28 deaths were added to the statewide toll, with two — both from Preston County — removed as duplicates. That brings the total to 4,134 since the start of the pandemic. Locally, the latest deaths include three men from Wood County, ages 56, 59 and 73. Deaths of a 53-year-old woman from Wetzel County, an 86-year-old man from Jackson County and a 79-year-old man from Wirt ...

West Virginia officials: COVID deaths decreasing slower than new infections

CHARLESTON — Although active COVID-19 cases are at less than half the number they reached a month ago and hospitalizations are slowly declining, the number of deaths attributed to the virus are expected to take longer to follow suit. “We’re through the peak of this surge, but we’re not through this surge,” Bill Crouch, cabinet secretary of the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, said during Gov. Jim Justice’s online COVID briefing Friday. “Deaths will continue and will start declining, but they’re the last indicator that we see drop.” The DHHR ...