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
Vaccination rates stayed high and significant COVID-19 metrics got lower Monday, both pieces of good news for West Virginia in its battle against the virus.
The Mountain State continued to lead the country in rate of vaccination, while the Department of Health and Human Resources’ COVID-19 alert map, bathed in red in recent weeks, showed much less of that color in Monday’s edition.
As of Monday, the state had administered 130,600 first doses of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, which is 7 percent of West Virginia’s nearly 1.8 million residents.
Both vaccines require two doses each and, as of Monday, 23,092 West Virginians had received their second shot of the vaccines.
From STAFF REPORTS
Ohio County was in orange for the second straight day on the state’s COVID-19 alert map, as there were more counties that weren’t in red than were in red, a rare sight on the map over the last few weeks.
Only 21 of West Virginia’s 55 counties were in red on the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Sunday map. Twenty-six were in orange, seven were gold and one, McDowell, was yellow.
Ohio County had a percent positivity of 7.36 on Sunday’s map, underneath the 8.00 threshold that puts a county in red. It also had an infection rate of 59.34 cases per 100,000 residents.
The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department said there were 19 new cases of COVID-19 Saturday in the county.
That brings the total cases to 3,195 with 57 deaths in Ohio County.
Meanwhile, for the first time in weeks, Ohio County moved from the red designation on the state Department of Health and Human Resources map to orange. Starting Monday and running until Jan. 22, the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department will hold free COVID-19 testing clinics at two locations in Ohio County the health department itself and the Wheeling Island Fire Station on North Wabash Street. The free clinics are for those with or without symptoms and no insurance is needed. Participants need to bring a driver’s license, photo ID or other proof of address.