The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley A line of vehicles wait Monday afternoon outside the COVID-19 testing facility at DirectCare, off the Beverly Pike Five-line in Elkins.

The Inter-Mountain photo by Edgar Kelley
A line of vehicles wait Monday afternoon outside the COVID-19 testing facility at DirectCare, off the Beverly Pike Five-line in Elkins.

ELKINS — The Randolph-Elkins Health Department reported another coronavirus death in the county on Monday as the virus claimed the life of a 63-year-old female during the weekend.

This is the 11th COVID-19-related death reported in Randolph County.

The surge of COVID-19 active case numbers in the county during the past several weeks shows no signs of slowing down.

The REHD said the county had 131 active cases as of Monday, up from 82 active cases on Aug. 9, which was more than triple the amount that was reported the prior week on Aug. 3, when there were just 28 cases. The county had zero active cases on July 12.

Bonnie Woodrum, the Randolph-Elkins Health Department’s infectious disease specialist, told The Inter-Mountain Monday that, because of how fast active cases are coming into the health department, it’s becoming difficult to determine an accurate count of the total number of active cases in the county.

“We really just don’t know what the exact active case number is, because they are coming in way too fast,” she said. “We had 103 on Friday and we’ve had at least 30 more come in today before lunch time. So it’s hard to say how many we’ll end the day with, but it’s going to be well over 100 active cases.”

Davis Medical Center currently has 10 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Three of those patients are in the Intensive Care Unit, officials said.

Woodrum said the best protection against catching the recent wave of COVID-19 is for people to start taking the same precautions that they once were.

“I would suggest masks for everybody,” said Woodrum. “The more care we take, the safer our kids will be and the more likely we are to stop this.”

Even though local health officials have no way to determine for sure how much of the current spike of cases are of the delta variant, all signs are pointing toward it likely being the more contagious strain. The state laboratory determines whether or not the delta variant is present by performing a PCR test on the positive results that are sent in.

“It is following that pattern of the delta variant,” Woodrum said. “More people are having a fever than we had the first time it was going around. And it seems to be spreading more quickly. Most people have symptoms or test positive within the first couple of days of their exposure.”

Woodrum also suggests that those who are still not vaccinated do so.

“Most of the people who are hospitalized are unvaccinated,” she said. “Almost all of the people who have passed away recently are the unvaccinated. And right now there are more children in ICU beds across the country than there were all of last year.”