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By STEVEN ALLEN
ADAMS
For the
Sunday News-Register
CHARLESTON – West Virginia broke a record Thursday for the most COVID-19 test results in one day, helping to bring the state’s positivity rate down, helping counties with high case numbers possibly re-open their schools, and identifying super-spreaders of the virus.
According to the Department of Health and Human Resources, the state received 9,909 test results Thursday, which is the highest number of test results in one day.
The last record was set on Aug. 19 with 7.905 tests.
Those 9,909 tests identified 277 people with COVID-19 infections, the second highest number in one day since 326 infections were found on Sept. 11. The daily percent of positive cases was 2.8 percent, while the cumulative percent of positive cases was 2.77 percent.
Active cases of the coronavirus -- which include people self-quarantined at home for asymptomatic or mild cases and people hospitalized with severe cases – were 4,153 as of Friday morning’s update of the DHHR coronavirus dashboard.
Gov. Jim Justice and state health officials have urged West Virginians the last two weeks to get tested for COVID-19, expanding the number of free drive-thru testing opportunities across the state.
Testing opportunities can be found at coronavirus.wv.gov. On top of encouraging people to get tested, Justice received a flu shot live Friday.
“That is the key to this entire thing,” Justice said during his end-of-week coronavirus briefing. “We need to you to continue to come out and get tested … in all counties where we’re offering up the testing. Come out.”
A task force of DHHR officials and health experts from West Virginia University recently re-tooled the metrics for the County Alert System color-coded map to use a percent of positivity to determine color codes in an effort to incentivize state residents to get tested to bring county positivity rates down and to find asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spreaders of the virus.
“The whole key to this thing is finding the spreaders,” Justice said. “When we find the spreaders, we absolutely shut it down. When we find the spreaders, they absolutely will get well. We will stop people from dying … this could very well be our best work.”
West Virginians appear to be getting the message, with counties with some of the worst incidence rates of infection have seen their colors trend from red to orange to gold. Kanawha County -- which has not been able to re-open for in-person school since the Sept. 8 start of schools statewide – is now gold, meaning it has between 10 and 14.9 cases per 100,000 people based on a seven-day average of cases, or a positivity rate between 4 percent and 4.9 percent.
Both teachers’ unions in the state have raised concerns about switching to the positivity rate as a basis to determine whether schools can re-open for in-person learning.
The West Virginia Education Association has threatened to file an injunction to halt the use of the new map and metrics and replace it with an independently-created system based more along the Harvard Global Health Institute map which the state County Alert System map is loosely based on.
The West Virginia chapter of the American Federation of Teachers held a conference call with their union members earlier this week.
Local presidents will meet with union members to determine what actions members want to take in regard to the update map. AFT-WV President Fred Albert said his members have no confidence in the changes to the metrics.
“In grading the Governor’s performance on this critical test, he receives an F. He is failing to keep West Virginians safe,” Albert said. “Constant changes in the map have given our school employees, parents and students emotional whiplash. Adding a color or moving the target doesn’t make our schools or communities safer.”
There has also been a concern about residents purposely getting tested every day at different testing sites in an effort to affect the positivity rate.
Anecdotal stories point to high school student-athletes, coaches, and even school board members trying to get tested multiple times to change the metrics so schools can re-open and high school sports can resume in those counties.
Justice said an investigation of 2,000 cases only found 13 incidents where something along these lines occurred.
The state is working with the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission to develop penalties for students and coaches who try to game the COVID-19 testing system.
“It’s the wrong message that we ought to be sending,” Justice said. “From my standpoint, if we’re going to do things like that that we should not be doing in any way for the sake of playing a ball game when this is so serious for the sake of people dying … I would hope it would lead to suspension of games or whatever that may be.”
West Virginia has also seen its Rt value -- which the average number of people can become infected by a person with COVID-19 -- trend in a good way.
As of Friday, the state’s Rt number was 0.94, which was the seventh best rate in the nation. Any number below 1 means the growth of the virus in communities is slowing.