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Coronavirus

COVID

If you’re going by the numbers, navigating today’s COVID-19 landscape can be a bit tricky, as changes in reporting mean there is no longer a clear picture of hospitalization numbers, vaccinated versus unvaccinated, positive test results … anything, really. For example, what we know about a reported outbreak at Roane General Hospital’s long-term care facility is a little different from the image the word “outbreak” can conjure. CEO Doug Bentz says the label “outbreak” comes from the facility not having gone two weeks without a positive test among residents or staff, ...

New booster vaccine on its way to region

ELKINS — Health officials are hoping that a new vaccine booster which arrived in West Virginia on Monday will be the answer against the ongoing battle with the Omicron strains of COVID-19. Since last Thanksgiving, the Omicron variant has been the predominant strain of those infected with the virus in the United States. And since then, multiple Omicron sub variants of the strain have arrived, including BA.5, which is the most contagious one to date. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 88 percent of the cases right now in the U.S. are that of the Omicron variant, ...

COVID-19

State health care officials are watching changes in the number of COVID-19 hospitalizations carefully, and have decided it might be time to prepare for another challenge to the hospitals and health care systems that haven’t quite caught their breath from the last round. On Aug. 22, the West Virginia Joint Interagency Task Force for COVID-19 vaccines will hold a tabletop exercise to look at options for supporting those hospitals and health care systems if the numbers do, indeed, keep climbing. Staffing shortages and supply chain issues mean the “benchmark of concern” is 500 ...

CDC drops quarantine for COVID-19

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines Thursday, dropping the recommendation that Americans quarantine themselves if they come into close contact with an infected person. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others. The changes, which come more than 2 1/2 years after the start of the pandemic, are driven by a recognition that an estimated 95% of Americans 16 and older have acquired some level of immunity, either from being vaccinated or infected, agency ...

Supply Chain

Long-term effects of the pandemic are creating a challenge for more than just individuals and families. Businesses large and small are hurting because of what COVID-19 has done to the global supply chain. In fact, 90% of businesses reported disruptions because of the virus back in April 2020. Two years later, that number has fallen only to 66%, nationwide. Here, businesses are doing a little better, but still struggling. In West Virginia, 41.9% of businesses say they are seeing domestic supplier delays. In Ohio, the figure is a little higher, at 48.8%. According to a report by ...

COVID cases spiking in Randolph

ELKINS — With active COVID-19 case numbers continuing to rise locally and across West Virginia, health officials are becoming increasingly concerned with the direction the virus is headed. “Our biggest concern is that we really don’t know how many cases are really out there,” Bonnie Woodrum, the Randolph-Elkins Health Department’s infectious disease specialist, told The Inter-Mountain Monday. “There is no telling how many people are doing home tests because we don’t get those reports at all. Also there is no telling how many people with slight symptoms aren’t ...