COVID-19 cases in West Virginia rise to 914, with 26 deaths – WHSV

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WHSV) As of 10 a.m. on April 21, when the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) issued their morning update on the COVID-19 case total, there have been 914 confirmed cases across the Mountain State.

A total of 22,763 West Virginia residents have been tested, with 21,849 negative results, 914 positive results, and 26 confirmed deaths due to the virus.

It is with great sadness that we announce more lives lost to this pandemic, said Bill J. Crouch, Cabinet Secretary of DHHR. Our sympathies and thoughts go out to these families.

This past Friday, the West Virginia DHHR issued an order requiring all laboratories to submit their testing results, both positive and negative, to the state's electronic system in real-time.

Testing for many people across West Virginia has been very limited, with people reporting difficulties finding anywhere near them that can perform tests and a lot of people in rural areas having to travel miles to the closest hospital just to find out that they don't meet the screening requirements.

According to DHHR data, 20.68% of the patients with confirmed cases in West Virginia are currently hospitalized. About 50% of people with confirmed cases had pre-existing conditions.

As of April 20, 77 patients were hospitalized, 513 were in home isolation, and 290 had fully recovered from the virus in West Virginia.

All of that data and more can be found in a slideshow here, updated daily.

Medical providers and laboratories have been required to report positive test results to DHHR, but will now have to report all results and do so electronically. Once the DHHR has them, they then submit the official numbers to the CDC and update their state website.

State officials have said for weeks that negative and pending tests from commercial labs have been under-reported because some labs cannot electronically submit negative results. The new DHHR order is designed to combat that.

Across the state, these are the confirmed cases by county, as of 10 a.m. on April 21:

Barbour (4)Berkeley (113)Boone (2)Braxton (1)Brooke (3)Cabell (34)Fayette (5)Grant (1)Greenbrier (3)Hampshire (6)Hancock (7)Hardy (3)Harrison (30)Jackson (101)Jefferson (63)Kanawha (134)Lewis (2)Lincoln (1)Logan (8)Marion (43)Marshall (8)Mason (10)McDowell (6)Mercer (9)Mineral (10)Mingo (2)Monongalia (91)Monroe (5)Morgan (8)Nicholas (4)Ohio (23)Pendleton (2)Pleasants (2)Preston (10)Putnam (15)Raleigh (7)Randolph (4)Roane (2)Summers (1)Taylor (5)Tucker (4)Tyler (3)Upshur (4)Wayne (78)Wetzel (3)Wirt (2)Wood (31)Wyoming (1)

The DHHR notes that surveillance at the local health department level may reveal over time that some initial test results in counties were for residents of another county or another state.

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COVID-19 cases in West Virginia rise to 914, with 26 deaths - WHSV