Guntersville City Council approves funding to hire more nurses
More nurses are needed to administer vaccines in Marshall County By Stefante Randall | January 20, 2021 at 10:02 PM CST - Updated January 20 at 10:03 PM
GUNTERSVILLE, Ala. (WAFF) - More healthcare workers are needed to give out COVID vaccines in Marshall County.
The Guntersville City Council approved funding to help make that happen.
Right now, you have to be 75 or older to receive the COVID vaccine in Marshall County. But, thousands of people will ultimately be eligible as the state moves through its vaccine plan.
That’s why Judy Smith with the Alabama Department of Public Health said more help is needed and soon.
From Staff Reports
Brooke, Ohio and Marshall counties remained in red on the state’s COVID-19 alert map Wednesday, but the roster of that club around the state continued to shrink.
Of West Virginia’s 55 counties, 15 of them were red the highest-risk category on the Department of Health and Human Resources Thursday COVID-19 alert map. Thirty-one counties, including Hancock County, were orange, the second-highest risk category.
Three more were gold, a rung below orange on the map, and five were in yellow, the second-safest category.
And for the first time in a long time, West Virginia had a county in green, the safest category on the map. McDowell County found itself in green by sporting a percent positivity of 2.87. A percentage below 3.00 earns that spot.
From STAFF REPORTS
Residents in Ohio and Marshall counties ages 65 and older can start calling this morning to set up an appointment for a multi-county COVID-19 vaccination clinic scheduled for Friday at the Marshall County Fairgrounds.
Ohio County residents will be able to call (304) 234-3798 and Marshall County residents will be able to call (304) 221-9911 starting at 8:30 a.m. today to schedule appointments. Wetzel and Tyler county residents can be vaccinated there as well, but their spots will be filled by their current waiting lists.
The clinic will be held Friday from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Chevron Building at the fairgrounds, at 714 Myrtle Ave. in Moundsville. Entrance to the clinic will be from 12th Street in Moundsville.
From STAFF REPORTS
The Marshall County Health Department reported another COVID-related death Friday evening, the 55th such death in the county since the pandemic began.
According to the department, the latest death was of a 72-year-old man hospitalized at the time of his passing. The department also reported 38 more confirmed positive cases and six new probable cases.
That puts Marshall County’s totals at 1,998 confirmed cases, 493 probable cases, eight hospitalizations and 55 associated deaths.
The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department announced 33 new positive COVID cases Friday night, bringing that county’s totals to 3,176 cases and 57 related deaths.
In Ohio, Belmont County has had 4,428 positive cases since the pandemic began, with 840 people in isolation with active cases, 3,471 recoveries, and 32 people have been hospitalized. There have been 85 deaths associated with the virus, with the latest two deaths reported Friday. They are a woman in her 90s who had been in
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Health professionals weren’t caught flat-footed Wednesday morning with Gov. Jim Justice announcing that the age range for COVID-19 vaccinations will drop to 70, effective Wednesday.
They welcomed the opportunity to continue vaccinating new groups as long as the vaccine doses kept coming.
Marshall County Threat Preparedness Director Mark Ackermann said the department was happy to get to work vaccinating a new range of clients.
Ackermann said that even before the announcement was made Wednesday morning, the Ohio, Marshall and Wetzel county health departments had been scheduled for a phone conference to become a new regional clinic.
“We’re told that we should be becoming one of these clinic sites, they’re doing regionally. We’ve already got a planning meeting scheduled for (today),” Ackermann said. “We’re looking forward to it. Our 80-year-old clinics that we’ve done have gone very well, they were very eager.”