As of 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, West Virginia had marked two confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
While a total of 143 people in the state have also tested negatively for the virus, three other cases are still pending.
And that number carries the possibility of other West Virginia residents falling ill.
While that’s happening, schools remain closed, and people, in a self-distancing way, are still trolling for toilet paper in the grocery store aisle.
In other words, life, pandemic-style, is still going on here.
Which means death is, too.
As of 8:30 p.m., Wednesday, West Virginia had yet to lose a resident to COVID-19.
Loved ones and friends do pass on, though, no matter what — meaning, for now, a different set of protocols in the funeral home for the grieving and the goodbye.
That’s because West Virginia has an aging population with high rates of heart disease, diabetes and other pre-existing factors that can be deadly in combination with the virus.
Self-distancing here is critical.
Funeral director Jason Smith, who owns and operates Smith Funeral & Cremation Care in Westover with his wife, Cathy Baker-Smith, said he’s gently easing in to the protocols introduced recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention while the virus runs its course.
Should his funeral home ever handle the arrangements for a person who did succumb to the virus, he said Wednesday, the family’s wishes would be of the utmost.
That’s whether the family would choose an open-casket funeral, which entails embalming, or cremation.
“We wouldn’t deny a family any option,” he said. “We’re here to serve the family.”
The West Virginia Funeral Directors and Crematory Operators Association recommends using gloves, masks and other protective measures as mapped out by the CDC while preparing a coronavirus-diseased body.
Smith agrees.
“And that’s just because everyone is still learning about the coronavirus,” he said.
After that, Cathy Baker-Smith said, it comes down to the matter of what funeral homes, and their directors and their staffs, do anyway.
That is, guiding the survivors through the process, she said.
It could mean, she said, gently and tactfully limiting the numbers in visitation areas, by asking them to wait for a few minutes while people paying their respects leave.
It could mean, she said, employing pandemic logistics, which their funeral home is already doing.
An attendant is now positioned at the front door of their funeral home, she said, meaning that no one has to touch a door knob.
While some funeral homes in recent days are moving away from the guest book, theirs still has one, only with an allotment of pens.
“You sign the book and take the pen with you,” she said.
A lounge in the funeral home with couches and a coffee pot has been temporarily shuttered, she said, and toys in the home’s playroom have been temporarily boxed up and removed.
“That’s just one more precaution,” Jason Smith said. “We still have the TV, if a kid wants to bring a movie. And the room is still open, if they bring their own toys to play with.”
“These are things we have to do right now,” his wife said.
“But we can still be respectful.”
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