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Staff Report
CHARLESTON -- Active cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus in West Virginia have dropped below 300, according to Tuesday's pandemic update from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
The state reported 263 active cases with 93 new cases received between Monday and Tuesday's updates.
Active cases in Wood County dropped to single digits on Tuesday, eight, according to the state. Eleven cases were active Monday in Wood County where more than 1,500 active cases were once logged during a peak in the virus surge.
Active cases in other counties in the region (previous day) as of Tuesday were: Calhoun 1 (0), Doddridge 0 (0), Gilmer 1 (0), Jackson 2 (1), Pleasants 2 (2), Ritchie 4 (2), Roane 3 (3), Tyler 2 (1), Wetzel 3 (4), Wirt 1 (1).
All counties are green on the County Alert System Map, the lowest level based on infection rates.
Seven more deaths from the virus have been confirmed in the 24-hour period between Monday and Tuesday mornings. Deaths were recorded in Summers, Kanawha, Berkeley, Grant, Marion and Mercer counties.
A reverse-death reconciliation process has been completed for 2021 by the epidemiologists at the Bureau for Public Health. The process looks at all the death reports received by the DHHR to ensure the death was certified by the National Center for Health Statistics as a COVID-19 death on the death certificate.
Of the 3,948 deaths reported in 2021, 122, or 3%, have been determined not to be COVID-19 deaths and have been removed from the statewide count. Also five duplicates from 2021 were identified during the reconciliation process and three additional deaths from 2020 were determined not to be COVID-19, which also were removed.
The deaths were originally reported to the department as COVID-19 deaths through a death report, but the death certificate later determined the cause of death was not COVID-19, the department said.
The count as of Tuesday is 6,716, 123 less than the 6,839 deaths identified on Monday, according to the department.
"We offer our deepest condolences as our state grieves more losses due to COVID-19," department Secretary Bill J. Crouch said.
Hospitalizations also are slowly declining with 135 patients reported on Tuesday, 71 unvaccinated. Thirty-eight people are in an intensive care unit, 24 unvaccinated, and 22 are on ventilators, 12 unvaccinated.
Two pediatric patients with one in an ICU were reported.