COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice, Coronavirus Czar urge West Virginians to use Vaccine Calculator to check if they're up-to-date on their shots

Press Release

Gov. Jim Justice and members of the West Virginia COVID-19 pandemic response leadership team held another news briefing today to update the public on the state's latest pandemic response and vaccine distribution efforts.
CASE NUMBERS & VACCINE/BOOSTER INFO
On Monday, Gov. Justice reported that there are now 1,343 active cases of COVID-19 statewide; up by 229 cases since his previous briefing on Friday last week.

Over the past month, the number of active cases in the state has more than tripled. The number of hospitalizations, patients in ICUs, and patients on ventilators have all leveled out in the same timeframe.

COVID-19 Dashboard | Coronavirus.wv.gov

An updated breakdown of the West Virginia County Alert Map is as follows:
Red (0) | Orange (0) | Gold (0) | Yellow (15) | Green (40)

During Monday's briefing, Gov. Justice and State Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh urged all West Virginians to use the state's new Vaccine Calculator to check if they're up-to-date on their shots.
CLICK TO USE VACCINE CALCULATOR
"We continue to closely monitor COVID-19 in West Virginia and in the U.S., and we also try to look around the world to understand what risks might be coming to us. We see in the U.S. right now that we've about doubled the average number of COVID cases per day, and that is at the same time that we are seeing the BA.2 and BA.2.12.1 variants growing in the U.S.," Dr. Marsh said. "As we look at our hospitalizations, we see about 1,000 more hospitalized people in the United States in April than we did in March. But we are also cognizant that, as immunity starts to be reduced because of the time from the last vaccine, or if people have not been fully vaccinated, the result is a reducing amount of protection over time, which makes it really important for people to know when your next shot is needed."

"So it's really important, particularly for older people in West Virginia, to use the Vaccine Calculator and make sure you're staying up-to-date on your shots to protect yourself because, as we see, even though COVID is often not as severe as it was during previous surges, we're still seeing a lot of activity and we still worry that the most vulnerable parts of our population could be at high risk of still having severe disease, hospitalization, and even dying, as our country approaches our one millionth death from COVID-19," Dr. Marsh added.

"We know at this point that this is something that isn't going away completely any time soon, but it is something that we can manage," Gov. Justice said.

"This is something that we can live with. We can go about our business and we can have all the fun in life and do everything we want to do, and we can do it without being sick or in the hospital. We can avoid that by getting our vaccines."

All West Virginians ages 5 and older are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine. After the primary series, first booster shots are recommended for those ages 12 and older.

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