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PARKERSBURG -- Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend wearing masks indoors throughout much of the Mid-Ohio Valley as COVID-19 cases increase.
Based on the number of new cases per 100,000 people in the preceding seven days and the number of new COVID hospital admissions and percentage of staffed inpatient beds occupied by COVID patients, whichever is higher, the community levels are updated weekly by Thursday evenings.
Wood, Wirt, Calhoun, Pleasants, Ritchie and Roane counties all have a community level of "high" according to the federal CDC metric. The Mid-Ohio Valley Health Department, which serves those counties, has not changed its guidance on masking, leaving it up to individuals.
"If you feel comfortable not wearing a mask, do that, but if you have any concerns and want to wear one, do that," said Amy Phelps, public information officer.
Gilmer County was high last week and remained in that category in the updated statistics, along with Pleasants and Wood. They were joined by Doddridge, Jackson and Wetzel counties this week.
All those counties received the high designation because the number of new COVID-positive admissions were greater than 10 for the preceding seven days. WVU Medicine Camden Clark had 22 COVID-19 patients on Friday.
Only Tyler County remained in the "medium" category on the CDC guidelines. In that, the agency advises people at increased risk for severe illness to consider masking.
The County Alert System map was mostly yellow, the second-lowest level of the five-color scale measuring spread of the virus. Only nine counties -- including Jackson and Wirt -- were green, the lowest level. No counties were gold or higher.
Each county's level is determined by the rate of new cases per 100,000 people over the previous seven days or percentage of tests coming back positive, whichever is lower.
According to Friday's COVID-19 data from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, the number of active cases in the state topped 3,000.
Dr. Clay Marsh, the state's coronavirus czar, said during online briefings this week that increases are being driven by the BA.5 omicron variant of the virus, which is the dominant strain in the United States and accounted for about a third of the cases in West Virginia in the first week of July.
BA.5 is "by far the most infectious variant that we've seen to date," Marsh said Thursday, noting it multiplies quickly and is adept at evading immune system responses. Unlike prior versions it can also reinfect people "even as soon as a month after recovering from COVID-19," he said.
There were 3,002 active cases in Friday's DHHR update, up from 2,889 on Thursday.
Active cases in local counties on Friday (Thursday) were: Calhoun, 8 (8); Doddridge, 13 (11); Gilmer, 13 (13); Jackson, 38 (36); Pleasants, 14 (14); Ritchie, 7 (9); Roane, 38 (30); Tyler, 11 (9); Wetzel, 24 (18); Wirt, 3 (3); Wood, 147 (137).
The DHHR attributed three deaths to COVID-19 on Friday, those of an 83-year-old Marion County woman, a 91-year-old Cabell County woman and a 95-year-old Kanawha County man.
"It's important to remember that every number on our dashboard represents a person affected by COVID-19," DHHR Cabinet Secretary Bill J. Crouch said. "We express our deepest condolences to those who have lost loved ones as we continue to fight this pandemic."
Total hospitalizations declined from 330 to 311, with 175 classified as vaccinated, meaning they received at least the first two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine or one of the Johnson and Johnson formula. Thirty-eight patients, 25 of them vaccinated, were in intensive care units. Seven were on ventilators, all of them considered vaccinated. There were seven pediatric cases in hospitals, two in ICUs.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.