CHARLESTON – West Virginia may be ahead of schedule in the installation of equipment to improve WiFi access as schools get nearer to the Sept. 8 reopening date, a state official said Friday.

The Kids Connect Initiative is aimed at creating WiFi hotspots where students can access the internet for their classroom work.

“It looks like we’re absolutely ahead of schedule, if not ahead of schedule,” state Superintendent of Schools Clayton Burch said during Friday’s COVID-19 pandemic briefing by Gov. Jim Justice.

The initiative involves the installation of equipment at more than 1,000 schools, colleges, libraries and state parks to turn them into WiFi hotspots for students to use after school hours.

According to the Department of Education, signals will be broadcast into parking lots and locations in proximity so students can access the school assignments.

While installations are at or exceed the schedule, the state also is looking for additional sites, Burch said.

Friday’s briefing was a mix of both good and somber news.

Four more residents died from the virus, the 167th through 170th deaths so far since the pandemic struck West Virginia, Justice said. The dead were a 35-year-old woman from Fayette County, an 85-year-old woman from Mercer County, an 81-year-old man from Mercer County and an 87-year-old woman from Kanawha County, he said.

“Extremely sad,” the governor said.

The measurement predicting future infections and hospitalizations, known as the Rt value, a measurement of the spread of the virus, has dropped to .89, one of the lowest in the country, according to Dr. Clay Marsh, who leads the state’s pandemic response.

“That’s the lowest it’s been for several days, if not weeks,” Justice said.

Outbreaks continue in nursing facilities and churches, including a church in Wood County, Justice said. The state and the facilities are responding and Justice encouraged residents to do their parts, too.

“If you can skip a couple weeks of church, that may be good,” or attend online, he said.

The state has modified its color-coding system for reopening schools to adjust for counties with smaller populations, changing the period for measurement from seven to 14 days for counties with less than 16,000 people, Justice said.

The system is a cumulative average of new cases as a ratio of population. The rate, green for the best to red for the worst, will determine whether schools will be open for in-person learning, a combination for in-person and virtual or closed for online instruction.

Response to the census count also has improved, he said. The state is now over 84 percent and No. 2 in the country, Justice said.

Jess Mancini can be reached at jmancini@newsandsentinel.com.