WHEELING -- The number of patients in intensive care units because of COVID has hit record numbers in West Virginia, as has the number of patients on ventilators in the state.
There were 252 COVID patients receiving ICU care in West Virginia's hospitals as of Wednesday morning -- a number surpassing that posted during the peak of the last COVID surge in early January, Gov. Jim Justice announced Wednesday. Also setting a record is the number of patients presently on ventilators throughout the state, which was at 132 as of Wednesday morning.
Justice announced another 21 COVID-related deaths in the state since Monday, bringing the state's total to 3,169. The daily positivity rate is at 17.96%, and West Virginia leads the nation in the number in the acceleration rate of new cases, he said.
There are 68 incidents of COVID outbreaks within West Virginia's schools in 31 schools. Ten individual schools and the entire Clay County School District are closed due to COVID, according to Justice.
Twenty-nine of West Virginia's 55 county school districts have issued mask mandates for students and staff.
"The delta variant has entered that explosive growth phase where unvaccinated people are infected, and they can affect others largely unvaccinated and social networks and you're getting cross-contamination," said Dr. Clay Marsh, West Virginia's COVID-19 "czar."
He compared the spread to a raging fire that starts in a few places.
"After a while, if you have enough dry timber and not enough fire walls, it can consume more of the forest at risk and cause a raging fire" Marsh explained. "That is what I believe we are experiencing right now in West Virginia."
And he said nothing works best as a firewall against COVID than vaccinations against the virus.
State officials on Wednesday did report an uptick in the number of COVID vaccinations in the state. Since Friday, 11,000 in West Virginia have been vaccinated, they said. Marsh acknowledged vaccinations won't reverse the current COVID surge in the state, but he said they will prove helpful going forward.
He predicts the current surge won't peak for another 10 to 14 days, and there will still be COVID-related sickness happening for at least two weeks after that time.
James Hoyer, director of West Virginia's Joint Interagency Task Force, reported that 83% of those being hospitalized have not been vaccinated against COVID. He said 90% of those in the ICU aren't vaccinated, and 92% of those on ventilators haven't been inoculated.
Justice was asked if he feared political reprisal if he were to issue a statewide mask mandate.
"I'm not going to be afraid of anybody. I am going to try with all in me to make the best decision for everybody," he said. "It's not that I'm opposed to a mask mandate. I'm opposed to mandates. But in this, I'm trying to keep us all together.
"I know the very second we start to fragment… we'll get worse. We won't get better, it'll get worse."
He admitted pandemic concerns are giving him stress.
"It's hard to sleep when you're worried about everybody, you're worried about what's going on, and you're worried about the hardheadedness of people refusing to take the vaccines," he said.
Justice said he will seek to make the best decisions for everybody.
"I'm not concerned about somebody throwing a rock at me. I'm concerned about people throwing rocks at all of us and hurting all West Virginians," he said.