KINGWOOD — COVID-19 cases are increasing across the country and Preston County is no exception.
As of Monday, the county’s infection rate was 63.24% and its positivity rate was 9.4%, V.J. Davis, administrator for the Preston County Health Department told the Preston County Commission at its regular meeting on Tuesday.
In the past seven days, Preston County had 156 new cases of COVID averaging about 22 new cases a day over the past few weeks, Davis said.
“To give you a little comparison, during the months of May and June for that two month period, we had a total of 150 new cases,” Davis said. “For the month of July and August, in that two month period, we’ve had 456 positive cases. We are seeing a significant increase.”
Since the start of the pandemic, there have been 3,440 cases in Preston County and 50 deaths, Davis said.
“And actually that’s going to go up because as I was going out the door we did just receive notification of another but we haven’t processed that yet,” he said.
There are 172 active cases in the county with 30 of them in children between ages 4 and 18. Davis said there are three hospitalizations and 95% of the cases are in unvaccinated individuals.
Davis said the health department still gets calls comparing COVID to the flu or pneumonia and he wishes people would stop doing that because it’s completely different.
“And just to put a little bit in perspective, I actually looked these numbers up this morning,” Davis said. “Over the last six years in West Virginia we have roughly averaged about 450 deaths per year in West Virginia from both flu and pneumonia per year. And since COVID started, which is about a year and a half, we’ve had 3,148 deaths in West Virginia from COVID.”
Davis said if you want to call all those flu cases, then we’ve had a huge flu epidemic. The number of deaths over the past 18 months are “staggering” with Preston County losing 51 people to COVID compared to the average of 10-12 from flu and pneumonia each year.
“As far as what we can do, you know, there’s really, everything out there that we can do is out there,” Davis said. “The vaccine is readily available. We are definitely recommending, if you’re eligible for a vaccine, it’s probably the best thing you can do to try to help prevent either getting it, spreading it, or even if you do get it, it’s probably going to lessen the effects of it.”
With numbers the way they are, a face covering indoors or around large groups of people, is recommended, Davis said. Masks aren’t foolproof — but short of an encapsulation suit nothing is.
“It’s just an extra layer of protection,” Davis said. “It’s just that extra thing to catch particles coming out of your mouth, or maybe help prevent them from getting to you.”
Commission Dave Price asked about the local process to get vaccinated.
Davis said the easiest thing to do is find a vaccination site on vaccines.gov. That site shows vaccination appointments are available at Walmart, Walgreens, and Gregg’s Pharmacy in Terra Alta, all of which Davis mentioned to the commission.
The health department also schedules vaccinations for the end of each week so the correct number of vaccine vials can be opened and not wasted, Davis said.
Commissioner Samantha Stone asked about where the county’s testing sites were.
Testing has dropped off but is picking back up because of the surge, Davis said. Drive through testing will be available 1-3p.m. Wednesday and Friday at Preston Memorial Hospital this week. Next week, testing is available during the same hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
The cases in Preston County are more than likely the Delta variant because of the huge number of cases and how sick people are getting, Davis said.
The hope is that, like other places this has happened, the numbers come down as fast as they went up, Davis said. Right now, statewide, the increase in cases is sharper than it was last fall.
However, Davis said he has no idea when the county will hit its peak as cases are continuing to rise.
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