COVID didn’t get to take off for Presidents’ Day like the students in Monongalia County did Monday.
When said students show up to answer roll this morning, however, numbers of them will also roll up their sleeves —– in the ongoing quest to quell the coronavirus for good.
Booster shots will be administered to students 12 and older during the in-school clinics, which run through Thursday.
“This is one more opportunity for our kids,” Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr., said.
Meaning one more jab toward normalcy, he said, with that term now being defined under the parameters of the pandemic dictionary.
The sleeve-rolling will coincide with an apparent rolling back of COVID cases across Monongalia and the Mountain State.
The county Board of Education meets in regular session at 6 p.m. today, and given the numbers, the superintendent said members will likely discuss the mask mandate as it considers the rest of the school year. That’s as a handful of school districts across the state — including Harrison in north-central West Virginia — have lifted mask mandates altogether.
Mon’s district has yet to make that commitment, Campbell said, as it goes with the call of Dr. Lee B. Smith, the medical director of the county health department.
Monongalia as of Monday morning had 188 active cases of the coronavirus, according to the most recent numbers from the state Department of Health and Human Resources. Mon Schools closed out last week 42 positive cases among its students — to go with the seven other positive diagnoses brought in by staffers.
Neighboring Preston charted 118 cases last week, the DHHR said.
Statewide, 17 counties were sitting in green on the agency’s alert map that morning, with none in red.
Mon came in with a yellow showing and Preston presented with gold.
COVID, meanwhile, hasn’t stopped being a consideration across the board.
Another 21 deaths were reported over the weekend, bringing the total numbers of fatalities in West Virginia from the contagion and its complications to 6,183, the DHHR said.
New cases to date total 3,105, with 645 people currently being treated in the hospital, according to DHHR numbers.
Of that number, 152 are in intensive care, with another 80 on ventilators.
Statewide, pediatric cases are generally keeping steady, DHHR said. Four of the 15 young patients are in intensive care and two require ventilators for assistance in breathing.
A 56-year-old Wood County woman was among the youngest of the most-recent victims to succumb to COVID, the DHHR said.
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