CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Hundreds of West Virginia National Guard members will conclude their statewide mission to help hospitals with COVID-19 staffing shortages on March 11.
“What they do is unbelievable and we’re really really proud of them,” Gov. Jim Justice said during his coronavirus media briefing Wednesday.
The Guard was deployed to dozens of hospitals in mid-January. The governor’s announcement came as hospitalizations fell below 500 for the first time since Aug. 2021.
The state Department of Health and Human Resources reported a total of 481 patients with 124 in the ICU and 64 on ventilators.
While active cases dropped to 2,143, deaths continued to climb. The state saw 42 new deaths Wednesday, bringing the total number of pandemic deaths to 6,381.
The new deaths are part of the state’s continuing data reconciliation with the official death certificate.
State health officials said they anticipate more deaths in the coming weeks before a leveling off.
Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s coronavirus czar said, there’s always a chance a new variant is around the corner.
“While we continue to watch carefully if the virus mutates more and new variants come up, we’re not seeing that at this very moment,” Marsh said. “We have learned enough to know to respect this virus and not to believe we can predict what this virus will do.”
The state’s COVID-19 County Alert Map on Wednesday showed 50 out of the state’s 55 counties in the “green,” meaning a low rate of spread.
Justice said the overall numbers are encouraging.
“We don’t want to drop our guard completely by any stretch, but we are really getting out of this,” he said. “The sun is starting to really shine.”
More than 80 percent of the current hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated. Marsh said that’s why they’re still encouraging residents to get vaccinated and boosted.
“It makes it really important for all of us to continue to enhance our immune function because that’s the best way that we can protect ourselves,” Marsh said.
State InterAgency Task Force Director Jim Hoyer said the state has an ample supply of antibodies and antivirals.
“We are now seeing a decrease in requests for those items,” Hoyer said.
With Spring and warm weather approaching, Justice said he sees a glimmer of hope to soon transition out of the pandemic.
“It would be really nice to start seeing the robins now wouldn’t it?” he said.