Roane, Doddridge residents among COVID deaths
From Staff Reports
CHARLESTON — Twenty-four more people including residents from Roane and Doddridge counties were among the deaths from the virus reported Monday morning by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
The Labor Day pandemic report also said active cases again rose in Wood County and other counties in the region while most of the counties including Wood are red in the County Alert System map, the highest level of infection rate and percent positivity.
Deaths include a 50-year-old woman from Roane County and a 102-year-old woman from Doddridge County, the oldest among the 24 deaths, the department said. Also confirmed were the deaths of residents from Lewis, Brooke, Braxton, Mason, Marshall, Raleigh, Kanawha, Wayne, Ohio, Wyoming, Harrison, Wyoming, Jefferson, Pendleton and Raleigh counties.
Statewide, the death toll since the pandemic began in March 2020 was at 3,148 as of Monday.
“We have lost too many loved ones to COVID-19 and send our sympathies to these families,” department Secretary Bill J. Crouch said. “Choosing to be vaccinated can protect yourself, your family, and your community.”
Wood County Schools on Sunday announced Blennerhassett Middle School will reopen today when classes resume. The school was closed on Friday because of a surge of cases in students.
Contact tracing and deep-cleaning of the school was performed this weekend, the school system said.
The School Recovery and Guidance Document, including who should quarantine after a Covid-19 exposure, also was updated and can be found at https://5il.co/y5mx.
According to the school system, if a COVID-positive exposure occurs: students who have been vaccinated do not have to quarantine; students attending a county with a universal mask requirement such as Wood County Schools and are unvaccinated will need to quarantine if within 6 feet of a confirmed case in high-risk areas such as cafeterias or extracurricular settings where masks are not worn; and the quarantine will last for 7-10 days.
More details on those options are available in the guidance document.
The school system on its coronavirus dashboard updated on Friday reported 174 active cases in schools, the most were at Blennerhassett Middle School with 29 and Parkersburg High School with 21. No cases were listed at Jackson Middle School.
Ninety-seven cases district-wide were cited the week before.
Active cases in Wood County as of Monday were at 1,057, up from 1,026 on Sunday. Active cases in mid July in Wood County were in the teens.
Active cases have also increased in most counties in the region over the holiday weekend updates except in Wetzel. Counts as of Monday (previous day) are: Calhoun, 174 (170); Doddridge, 97 (91); Gilmer, 52 (49); Jackson, 239 (217); Pleasants, 109 (105); Ritchie, 116 (112); Roane, 148 (146); Tyler, 198 (193); Wetzel, 323 (325); 78 (72).
Across the state, the department reported 21,500 active cases with 1,316 new cases received since the last update on Sunday. The state reported 20,900 active cases on Sunday.
The department reported 709 people in the hospital as of Monday with 216 in intensive care and 112 on ventilators, no change from Sunday. Patients on ventilators are a record while the intensive care number is three short of the highest.
Wood, Wetzel, Tyler, Doddridge, Ritchie, Wirt, Calhoun and Jackson remain red on the alert map. Roane and Gilmer are orange, second highest in severity, and Pleasants is gold, mid level.
No counties are green or yellow, the least severe on the map. Two counties are gold, Pleasants and Tucker, 12 counties are orange and 31 are red.
The department reported 6,471 breakthrough cases, those fully vaccinated, which is 4.84 percent of total cases since the start of vaccinations. Breakthrough deaths are at 84, 4.27 percent of the 2,048 deaths occurring since vaccinations started.
Eighty-four breakthrough deaths have been reported as of Monday.