Trending
CHARLESTON -- Another 13 deaths have been attributed to the COVID-19 coronavirus in West Virginia where the number of active cases have dropped under 800, the Department of Health and Human Resources reported on Thursday.
Statewide, active cases were at 781 on Thursday, a decline of 101 from Wednesday. The most active cases in the latest surge was 21,717 on Jan. 22.
State health officials have been reluctant to announce the pandemic has declined enough to be classified an epidemic. News agencies also are reporting a surge in the second mutation of the omicron variant, including in China and the United Kingdom.
Current active cases in local counties are: Calhoun 1, Doddridge 4, Gilmer 3, Jackson 12, Pleasants 3, Ritchie 7, Roane 6, Tyler 3, Wetzel 13, Wirt 0, Wood 26.
Of the 13 deaths reported since the last update, six were included from the data reconciliation with death certificates by the Bureau of Public Health that occurred in January and February and in January 2021.
The youngest of the dead are a 48-year-old man from Lewis County and a 45-year-old man from Harrison County. Other deaths were confirmed in Raleigh, Berkeley, Clay, Lewis and Wyoming counties.
The reconciliation deaths include an 84-year-old woman from Wood County.
The death count as of Thursday was 6,635 since the pandemic began more than two years ago.
"We mourn with all families suffering the loss of loved ones due to COVID-19," department Secretary Bill J. Crouch said.
All counties are green, the lowest level, on the County Alert System Map.
Hospitalizations were at 254 on Thursday, 150 of those unvaccinated. Seventy-two patients are in an intensive care unit, 45 unvaccinated, and 44 are on ventilators, 30 unvaccinated.
Four pediatric patients are in the hospital with one in an ICU.