West Virginia Tops 900 Coronavirus Deaths As Surge Continues

West Virginia health officials reported Wednesday a record number of new daily deaths from the coronavirus as the pandemic rages on and the state continues to feel the effects of a sharp increase in the number of new cases.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources recorded 31 new deaths from the coronavirus in the last 24-hour reporting period. The agency also noted 1,402 new cases in the past day.

The number of new deaths and virus cases has been surging in the state and across the nation in recent weeks, with West Virginia reporting 123 deaths in the last week. Health officials report more than 8,500 new cases over the last seven days.

To date, a total of 901 West Virginians have died in the pandemic. Of the 58,462 cases of the virus reported since the pandemic began, 20,059 are considered active.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice also announced Wednesday funding for a rapid-result testing lab at West Virginia University.

“We funded the lab out of our CARES Act dollars. We’ve waited for this to become a reality, and now it’s here,” Justice said. “West Virginia, this is your CARES money at work right here.”

Experts advising Justice say the recent uptick in cases may not fully reflect the effect of Thanksgiving gatherings.

State coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh cited the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has said it can take up to four weeks after a particular event for cases to manifest.

“[Dr. Fauci] has said publicly that we have not seen the peak of the Thanksgiving holiday. And I think that’s just projecting that particular set of data — the two to four week period,” Marsh said. “But the concern is that we may not have seen the peak here either. You know, we’ll have to see as time goes forward.”

Marsh and other state health experts are cautioning residents against gathering for any end-of-the-year holidays and urging people to wear a mask when indoors outside of their homes.

“It does provide a very risky situation for people here in West Virginia, as far as transmission, and people in the U.S. And we really, really urge people to be very, very thoughtful and cautious,” Marsh said.

Justice also noted Wednesday that the state expects to receive 32,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine in an initial allocation. That’s up from earlier projections that put West Virginia’s initial allocation at 26,000 doses. Sixty thousand doses of the Pfizer vaccine are expected to come to the state in a first shipment.

Both drug makers await federal emergency use authorization, although officials with the Federal Drug Administration will meet Thursday to discuss the research on Pfizer’s vaccine.

“FDA officials have said they plan to make a decision on approving this emergency authorization within four days of the meeting. I hope to the good Lord above they approve it faster than that,” Justice said.

In recent weeks Justice suggested he would consider targeted, county-level restrictions to stop the spread of the virus, but has announced no such measures.

Officials Caution ‘Dark Days’ With COVID-19 May Be Ahead As Winter Looms

Gov. Jim Justice continues to call on West Virginians to make changes in their day-to-day behaviors to limit the spread of the coronavirus. State health officials are strongly encouraging residents to wear masks, social distance and take advantage of free coronavirus testing opportunities, even if they do not feel sick.

Coronavirus Czar Clay Marsh said in a recent virtual press briefing with the governor that it is vital for West Virginians to recognize that in the winter season, there is a possibility COVID-19 spread could get worse if necessary changes are not made now.

“Droplets stay airborne longer as humidity is lower,” Marsh said. “Our mucous membranes are more permeable, are more open to getting infectious particles and having us breathe them in. So, it is our time, West Virginia, and we need to answer the call together, because if we don’t, I am very worried that dark days are coming.”

Officials reported that COVID-19 hospitalizations in West Virginia continued to increase this week from 215 hospitalizations on Monday, to 240 on Friday.

As of Friday morning, there were more than 520 new coronavirus cases in the state within 24 hours, and just over 4,900 active cases.

Even with the surge in numbers, the governor said outbreaks in West Virginia’s K-12 schools remain low and manageable.

To-date, 451 people in West Virginia have died from COVID-19 since the state began tracking the spread of the virus.

These Three Factors Are Driving Many COVID-19 Outbreaks In Rural Communities

As the economies of the Ohio Valley gradually reopen from the pandemic closures, state officials are still reporting hundreds of coronavirus cases each day in the region. In Kentucky, coronavirus cases are again on the rise, with a week-long average of daily cases approaching the highest level yet. Public health officials are concerned about a spread of coronavirus into more rural parts of the region. 

“I’m really worried that the second wave of COVID, as we come back open again, is going to hit rural America much harder than the first wave,”Dr. Clay Marsh said. Marsh, who is vice president of West Virginia University Health Sciences, has been leading coronavirus protection efforts in the state.

For many rural counties, the spikes in case numbers have stemmed from a few kinds of facilities and workplaces where COVID-19 has spread like wildfire: meatpacking plants, prisons, and nursing homes. Protecting rural communities, where many people are especially vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19, will largely depend on controlling the spread in those facilities.   

 

Click here to explore our Local COVID-19 Tracker.

Meatpacking Plants

“The problem is without a vaccine, there is no path to recovery, that there’s nothing normal about going to work and having to wear a mask and having your temperature taken,” said Caitlin Blair, spokesperson for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 227. 

Blair’s union represents workers in several meatpacking plants throughout Kentucky and southern Indiana where some workplaces have been rocked by soaring coronavirus infections, driving up case numbers in the counties where they’re located. 

The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services confirmed earlier in June a third meatpacking worker in the state had died. The death was from a Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Henderson County, Kentucky, where a labor leader with UFCW Local 227 hadraised concerns about social distancing in their workplace despite use of masks and plastic barriers.

“They go to work in the meatpacking plant. But when they go home, they’re your neighbors and your friends and your family,” Blair said. “Protecting these workers protects the whole community.”

Ananalysis from the Food and Environmental Reporting Network found that rural counties with meatpacking plants on average had COVID-19 cases five times higher than other rural counties without plants.

That analysis included two west Kentucky plants with hundreds of cases and two deaths between them: the Tyson Foods poultry processing plant in Henderson County, and a Perdue Farms poultry processing plant in Ohio County.

“In our seven-county district, we’ve, you know, the major driver of the cases that we’ve worked have been facilities in this sector,” said Clay Horton, director of the Green River District Health Department in west Kentucky. “When you look at a business or you look at a major employer, probably one of the larger employers in Ohio County, it’s bound to have an impact.”

 

Horton and his regional health department have been in close contact with leaders at both plants as outbreaks took hold over the past few months, advising on workplace safety guidance from the state and federal government. 

He said that while more data is needed on where cases originate, outbreaks in these plants could be spreading the virus to other people in rural communities, or at the very least driving up reported COVID-19 case numbers in counties where plants are located.

The Green River District Health Department confirmed the first cases of COVID-19 at the Perdue Farms in Ohio County and the Tyson Foods plant in Henderson County on April 6 and April 13, respectively. 

According to theOhio Valley ReSource’s COVID-19 Tracker, the seven-day average rate of newly reported cases each day began to increase in both counties as outbreaks took hold at the plants.

Ohio County, with a population of about 24,000, has almost twice the rate of coronavirus cases per capita compared to Jefferson County, Kentucky, where Louisville, Kentucky’s most populous city, is located.

Horton’s job to encourage workplace safety in these plants is complicated by federal guidance implying that the authority to temporarily shut down plants due to coronavirus cases should be left up to federal authorities, not state and local health officials. 

Horton said he often only has the “power of persuasion” to encourage meatpacking plants to follow optionalfederal coronavirus safety guidance, with his health department and companies not seeing eye-to-see on some standards.

He said Perdue Farms believed a worker who had no fever but was still showing other COVID-19 symptoms, including coughing, could come back to work. Horton’s department disagreed.

“There have been times during this outbreak that I’ve personally recommended to them that they should probably go above and beyond [federal guidelines], just in light of the number of cases that they were seeing and what we were seeing in terms of spread in the community,” Horton said. “They obviously had a different perspective, and we did all we could to try to persuade them to see [things] that way.”

Jails and Prisons

Meatpacking plants aren’t the only facilities driving COVID-19 infections in rural communities and isolated counties. Jails and prisons, some with overcrowded conditions and tight confines, and nursing homes, with particularly vulnerable populations, have also seen devastating outbreaks in rural counties. 

Public health experts on the front lines combating this virus say controlling outbreaks in these types of facilities is critical to protecting rural communities where the chance of COVID-19 spread would otherwise be low. 

 

Credit J. Tyler Franklin
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The group “Prison Wives of Green River” protested May 23 to call attention to COVID-19 cases in the prison.

At one point, soaring cases in in Central City, Kentucky, population 5,730, landed the town at the top of a White Housereport as having one of the country’s highest increases in coronavirus cases over a seven-day period in May, with a spike of 650%. 

Those cases could be pinpointed to one specific place: Green River Correctional Complex on the outskirts of the town. At least 363 inmates and 51 staff in the prison have tested positive, with many stillwaiting to be retested for the virus. According to the ReSource COVID-19 Data Tracker, Muhlenberg County, where Central City is located, saw a massive surge in cases in early May, around the time of the White House report.

Muhlenberg County’s per capita rate of coronavirus infections is 1615 cases per 100,0000 people, six times the rate for the state as a whole and among the highest of any county in the Ohio Valley. Nearly 1 in 5 people in the county are over the age of 65, and the county ranks among the worst in the country in rates of deaths due to cardiovascular disease and chronic respiratory disease, all risk factors making the population there more vulnerable to the worst effects of COVID-19.

 

Credit Alexandra Kanik / Ohio Valley ReSource
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Ohio Valley ReSource
Underlying health problems make many Muhlenberg Co. residents vulnerable to COVID-19.

Belmont Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio sawcases spike through mid-May, with at least 66 staffers and 132 inmates testing positive out of almost 2500 housed there. Three of those inmates died. 

Belmont County Health Department Deputy Health Commissioner Robert Sproul said about 70% of the county’s cases are connected to the prison, with another 20% connected to nursing homes in the county.

“It has dorm settings so it’s not individual cells. So these inmates are in close contact, you know, most all day. So the chance of spread is great. Same with a nursing home,” Sproul said. “This spread can happen very easily. So it seems to be more prevalent in those congregated areas.”

Since the first coronavirus caseswere confirmed at Belmont Correctional Institution in mid-April, cases steadily increased in Belmont County through May with a total 462 cases so far, according the ReSource’s COVID-19 Tracker.

Some of Ohio’s other prisons isolated in rural counties have seen skyrocketing outbreaks, with the state corrections departmentannouncing in May it would only test symptomatic inmates and staffdespite thousands testing positive after mass testing.

Ohio Department of Health Press Secretary Melanie Amato in a statement said the department has seen cases of meatpacking and nursing home workers spreading COVID-19 to other community members.

Nursing Homes 

West Virginia has the smallest population among the Ohio Valley states but its people are among the nation’smost vulnerable to COVID-19 due to underlying health problems. So far coronavirus outbreaks in meatpacking plants and prisons have been limited in the state.

State officials began testing all staff and inmates in state correctional facilities after anoutbreak at the Huttonsville Correctional Center in Randolph County. So far that hasnot found other large outbreaks. Health officialsbegan testing for COVID-19 at a Pilgrim’s Pride poultry plant in Moorefield, West Virginia, after a small bump in cases in the county.

But that hasn’t spared the state from devastating outbreaks in nursing homes. 

Clay Marsh, who’s been leading coronavirus protection efforts in the state, said it’s still critical to keep a close eye on these kinds of facilities that could be drivers of outbreaks. Particularly “congregate settings” including nursing homes, where the elderly population is especially vulnerable to the virus. 

“In West Virginia, at least the last time I looked, over 50% of people that die [from COVID-19] are people that live in this kind of setting,” Marsh said. “The clear issue is that people that work at these facilities, live in the communities, and if there’s community spread, then you can guess at some point somebody is going to introduce that spread into these congregate populations.” 

The operators and administrators of nursing homes, meatpacking plants and prisons have all implemented in varying degrees measures to protect against coronavirus spread. Those include testing temperatures when entering facilities, requiring masks, and restricting visitation. 

Yet Marsh said risk remains as people travel into West Virginia for summer tourism and businesses reopen. And recently another activity has him concerned, as Black Lives Matterprotests grow. He said while he supports the demonstrations he would like to see more protesters wear masks and keep their distance from others.

“I love them. But you just see people without masks and crowding. And you almost want to say ‘We still have a pandemic here, you know, this, COVID thing hasn’t gone away,’” Marsh said. “And I think people are distracted right now. Maybe they just got tired of staying inside.”

The ReSource’s Brittany Patterson and Aaron Payne contributed to this story.

 

Coronavirus Czar Says Pandemic Is A Stress Test For W.Va. Health Care

It’s been about 10 weeks since the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country, including West Virginia. While state officials are now reopening businesses, the pandemic is far from over. Seventy-eight West Virginians have died due to COVID-19. Unemployment claims have reached 250,000.

But the pandemic has exacted another toll — it’s fractured many of our healthcare institutions. When the state was in quarantine mode, hospitals delayed and canceled many medical procedures. People shied away from elective surgeries that are precisely the kind of procedures that make money for hospitals. As a result, revenues are down, and some health care systems have laid off staff to keep costs down.

Recently, Gov. Jim Justice lifted those restrictions to allow elective medical procedures. As medical systems come back online, Trey speaks with Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s COVID-19 czar, who sees the pandemic as an opportunity to fix the parts of the state’s healthcare system that are failing some West Virginians.

This episode of Us & Them is presented with support from the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, the West Virginia Humanities Council and the CRC Foundation.

Subscribe to Us & Them on Apple Podcasts, NPR One, RadioPublic, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you download podcasts. You also can listen to Us & Them on WVPB Radio. Tune in on the fourth Thursday of every month at 8 p.m. with an encore presentation on the fourth Saturday at 3 p.m.

West Virginia Eases Reopening Plan To Observe Caseload

West Virginia has scaled back its plan to lift coronavirus restrictions to gauge how current reopenings will affect the state’s caseload, officials said Tuesday.

Republican Gov. Jim Justice has announced that the third week of his plan will begin next Monday with the opening of physical therapy centers and drive-in movie theaters. His original strategy sought to have offices, gyms, restaurants and other businesses start resuming operations in the third and following weeks.

“This week we have reduced the aggressiveness of some of the reopenings. We’re going to let things kind of play out for a week or so,” Clay Marsh, a West Virginia University official leading the state’s virus response, told reporters.

Justice has so far let hospitals resume elective procedures and allowed the reopening of small businesses, outdoor dining restaurants and barber shops. The physical therapy centers and drive-in theaters can open Monday.

The governor has loosened a key testing benchmark to accommodate his reopening strategy without explanation. His plan hinges on having the state remain under a 3% positive test rate for three days, reversing a previous goal of having new cases decline for two consecutive weeks. Marsh previously endorsed the two-week criteria but now says the state has enough downward trend lines to warrant lifting restrictions.

The Justice administration has not given clear benchmarks on what kinds of testing capacity and safety equipment inventory it wants to have as part of the reopening strategy.

At least 50 people have died and about 1,200 people have tested positive for the virus, state health officials said.

Justice Hopeful To Reopen Schools Before Summer, But Offers No Timeline

Updated Tuesday, April 14, 2020 at 5:10 p.m.

West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice and other officials continued to say the state is trending in the right direction in its fight against the coronavirus pandemic but continue to hold off on lifting orders that have brought everyday life to a screeching halt. 

In a virtual news conference held Tuesday, Justice cited a map of the United States that represented confirmed COVID-19 deaths. He noted that West Virginia reports fewer deaths than neighboring states, as well as most other states. 

“It’s nine too many,” Justice said about the number of deaths that had been reported in the state. “But it’s one heck of a lot better than anything is going on around us. And understand just this: there’s no other state anywhere close to us — that has any kind of results like that — until you go way out west where the populations are few and far between.”

By Thursday evening, the state Department of Health and Human Resources had confirmed a 62-year-old man from Marion County as the tenth death related to COVID-19.

West Virginia is now nearly a month into responding to the pandemic. Through a series of executive orders, Justice began closing businesses on March 17 and a stay-at-home order went into effect March 25. 

Justice urged residents Tuesday to “stay the course” by remaining at home and continuing to practice social distancing. He said the state had anticipated a “surge” in cases between April 8 and 10.

The latest projections from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation show demand on hospital resources in West Virginia will peak April 18 and the highest number of deaths per day (through Aug. 4) is projected to come April 20. 

Those projections assume social distancing and mitigation practices remain in place through the month of May.

“We don’t want another surge. We’re trending in a great way,” Justice said. “And as we continue to trend in a great way, a lot of good things will start to happen to things that we want to start happening.”

But Justice also tempered his optimism. For now, he and state officials are not ready to re-open all businesses and other aspects of life that have been put on hold over the past month. 

“We’ve got to be cautious. I don’t want to send everybody out dancing in the streets right yet, but absolutely we’re getting there,” Justice said. “And we’re getting better.”

Tuesday marked the first day Justice and other state officials publicly discussed what things might look like when restrictions are lifted. State coronavirus czar Dr. Clay Marsh said there will likely be many measures that remain in place for some time.

“We will probably recommend people wear masks or face coverings, particularly in areas where you can’t socially distance as well,” Marsh said. 

Asked whether there was a chance schools would reopen before the end of the academic year, Justice said, he is hopeful to have classes resume “for at least a little bit of time.” As of now, schools are closed until April 30. 

Tuesday’s virtual news conference came just a day after President Donald Trump asserted he had “total authority” to lift restrictions imposed by governors to fight the spread of COVID-19. 

Asked to react to Trump’s comments, Justice said that the president is “under unbelievable pressure” but that he was unsure of what amount of power the president holds. 

“I cannot answer if it’s accurate or inaccurate and everything. But I can tell you that, you know, we should step back and give passes on opinions,” Justice said. 

Justice is not yet offering a timeline on reopening many aspects of daily life in the state. The governor said, as those conversations continue, he will continue to consult with health care professionals like Marsh.

But Marsh continues to caution that West Virginia remains in the early stage of its response. He said any lifting of restrictions – without an effective vaccine or treatment – will be a balancing act.

“As we do that, we know that in many ways the next stage is going to be much trickier than the first stage — and certainly with the first stage of this COVID-19 pandemic,” Marsh said. “We know that it’s been really important to try to reduce the rate of spread [and] not to create the surge and overwhelm our health assets and critical care beds.”

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