Susan Haslebacher was an example of economy in motion last spring at Suncrest Middle School.
It was the first day of a COVID vaccine clinic for students aged 12 to 15, and Haslebacher, who directs health services for Monongalia County schools, made sure to hit every station.
“You doing OK, sir?” she asked one lanky lad who appeared transfixed by the adhesive bandage on his arm.
“Good job,” she said to another female student who was flexing her arm and wiggling her fingers after the dose. “One down, one to go.”
Before she came back to her native West Virginia to raise her family, Haslebacher was an emergency room nurse in the Washington, D.C., area.
Which is why the above proceedings only looked chaotic. Pandemic aside, dealing with large numbers of patients, all at once, is just another day at the office for her.
She’s hoping that will be the case with the coronavirus, variants and all, she said Monday.
Even if she doesn’t want to say that fully out loud.
“I’ve learned not to speculate about COVID, because it definitely has its own mind,” she said.
Based on the numbers from local and state sources, that mind could be wandering a bit.
Mon’s school district has had two weeks in a row of single-digit COVID numbers, she reported Monday.
Just six students presented with positive diagnoses last week, she said, with zero cases among teachers and other employees.
County-wide cases in Mon totaled 36 Monday, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services, with just eight cases in neighboring Preston County.
However, while all 55 counties in West Virginia were showing green on the DHHR county alert map that day, another 229 residents across the state had tested positive over the weekend.
And another four deaths were logged, bringing the total to 6,743 West Virginians who have fallen to the contagion since 2020. A 50-year-old Wayne County man was the youngest of the recent victims.
To date, a total of 171 state residents are hospitalized with COVID, the DHHR said, with 43 in intensive care and another 26 on ventilators. That includes three pediatric patients in the hospital.
Meanwhile, the health director of Mon’s school district says she’s impressed by students here who have been compliant since the beginning.
“They wore their masks and got their shots,” she said.
“They’re still following the social-distancing and hand-washing protocols. They’re doing what they need to do, to keep safe.”
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