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Unreported COVID-19 Deaths Verified By National Center

A computer rendering of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
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At Friday’s regular COVID-19 briefing, 36 unreported deaths in West Virginia were verified by the National Center for Health Statistics.

The reconciliation comes after the federal agency suffered an outage relating to a data system update. It left the center unable to verify deaths across all 50 states from June 6 to June 20.

Two recent deaths were also announced during Gov. Jim Justice’s COVID-19 briefing. These include the deaths of an 81-year old man from Preston County and a 67-year old woman from Raleigh County.

This brings the total in-state deaths to 7,056 since the start of the pandemic.

There are currently 2,135 active coronavirus cases in West Virginia. That number includes 196 hospitalized, 23 ICU patients, and six patients on ventilators, according to Justice and the Department of Health and Human Resources. The number of active cases has increased by around 200 since Justice’s last COVID-19 briefing on Wednesday.

Nearly 55 percent of all West Virginians are fully vaccinated, according to the DHHR’s COVID-19 dashboard. Children above the age of 6 months old are now also eligible for the vaccine as of last week.

Nearby vaccine sites can be found online or at 1-833-734-0965. COVID-19 testing sites can also be found online.