Gov. Jim Justice took note of one red county and 10 orange ones, designating heightened levels of coronavirus.
“Today we have a bunch of counties that are in the orange. Wyoming County has turned red,” Justice said during a Monday briefing.
The orange counties were Berkeley, Morgan, Pendleton, Monroe, Doddridge, Clay, Wirt, Jackson, Wayne and Mingo.
Justice said the response to those situations should be more covid-19 testing to identify asymptomatic cases that might otherwise spread virus in communities.
“We’ve got to test more,” he said. “That will be the only way we find the spreaders, and if we can find the spreaders we’ll make life better everywhere.”
A key part of that, Justice said, is making testing accessible.
“What we are trying to do is get people to show up for testing and make the testing convenient,” Justice said.
Justice and his advisers warned of challenging days still to come.
“We’ve still got some stormy seas in front of us, but we’re going to get there,” Justice said.
The governor noted that West Virginia’s coronavirus reproductive rate has again gone above 1, along with most other states.
West Virginia’s rate on Monday morning was 1.02. If Rt is above 1.0, the virus will spread quickly. When Rt is below 1.0, the virus will stop spreading.
Across the country, said Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus response coordinator, “covid is starting to raise its head, and it’s going to get worse.”
Ten states reported their highest single-day case counts on Friday. Hospitalizations were also on the rise across the nation.
Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration chief who has been a mainstay on national news programs, sounded recent warnings about the national outlook.
“We’re going to have to endure this wave of spread right now,” Gottlieb said Sunday on “Face the Nation.” “And it’s probably likely to be the biggest wave that we endure without the benefit of a vaccinated population.”
During West Virginia’s regular coronavirus briefing, Marsh said a concerning trend is that all age groups are starting to be affected.
He said the biggest sources of spread right now are family gatherings or gatherings of friends.
“West Virginia has a very vulnerable citizenry,” Marsh said.