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CHARLESTON -- There are more patients in West Virginia hospitals with COVID-19 than there were two weeks ago, but the flu appears to be having more of an impact on resources right now.
"We're going to see the numbers rise," state Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch said during Monday's online briefing with Gov. Jim Justice. "We're not fully into flu season yet."
For the week ending Dec. 3, more than 1,100 emergency and urgent care visits -- 7.8% of all in the state -- had an influenza-like diagnosis, according to data from DHHR.
Approximately 84% of the adult hospital beds in the state are occupied, leaving 742 available, a DHHR spokeswoman said. Only an estimated 4% of West Virginia hospital admissions, 162, are COVID-related. Two weeks prior, there were 122 COVID hospitalizations in the state. Clay Marsh, the state's coronavirus czar, has attributed the increase to the arrival of more contagious variants in the state.
Twenty patients with COVID were in intensive care units and eight on ventilators, according to DHHR statistics. There were three confirmed pediatric hospitalizations with COVID, one in ICU.
In addition to COVID and the flu, hospitals had been seeing increased cases of RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus. But Crouch said there have been fewer instances of that in the last couple of weeks.
It all led back to Crouch and Justice offering familiar advice: get the flu shot and, those who haven't gotten the latest COVID vaccination and are more than two months removed from their last booster, get that one too.
"Please take that to heart, especially if you're 50 and older," Justice said, noting most deaths attributed to the virus in recent months have been among older individuals.
Monday's update from the DHHR listed 903 active COVID cases in the state, after topping 1,000 on Friday. Active cases in local counties Monday (Friday) were: Calhoun, 5 (3); Doddridge, 3 (6); Gilmer, 3 (7); Jackson, 32 (26); Pleasants, 3 (3); Ritchie, 7 (5); Roane, 16 (9); Tyler, 4 (4); Wetzel, 4 (13); Wirt, 1 (2); Wood, 36 (46).
No new deaths were announced Monday, leaving the number of fatalities attributed to the virus since the start of the pandemic at 7,627.
Most of the state was green on the County Alert System Map, representing the lowest level of spread on a five-part scale based on the rate of new cases per 100,000 people or percentage of positive tests over the last seven days, whichever is lower. Calhoun, Jackson and Roane counties were among eight counties at yellow, the second-lowest level.
During the briefing, Justice brought West Virginia Division of Emergency Management Director G.E. McCabe on to discuss a recent decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency denying federal assistance for storm and flood-related damage in Doddridge, Jackson, Mingo and Wyoming counties from mid-July to mid-August.
McCabe said state officials disagree with the decision and plan to continue gathering information for an appeal.
"FEMA and the National Weather Service (have) classified these storms as four separate events, which has played into part of their decision," he said.
But the ground remained saturated throughout the successive storms, compounding the problems, McCabe said.
"It's not fair in my opinion," Justice said. "Washington can be Washington, guys."
Federal authorities denied Kanawha County assistance last week after approving disaster declarations for McDowell County for storms on July 12 and 13 and Fayette County for Aug. 14 and 15.
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.