Young sounds alarm on rate of active COVID-19 cases, hospitalization rates

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Dr. Sherri Young, the Interim Health Officer and Executive Director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department (KCHD), says the common ground in this COVID-19 pandemic should be wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

“Common ground is we want kids in the schools, we want to work, we don’t want to lose our economy, we don’t want people to die. Masking seems like a pretty easy compromise and vaccination is another pretty easy compromise,” Young said during a Wednesday press conference.

Gov. Jim Justice complimented Young and her work during his coronavirus briefing on Wednesday but said he does not believe in mandates at this moment.

“I don’t think in the state of West Virginia we need to start mandating again at this point in time,” he said.

Young’s presser alongside county and Charleston officials came as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to rise in the county and state.

Sherri Young

The DHHR confirmed in Wednesday’s report 1,466 new COVID-19 cases contributing to a new active case number of 17,664. That’s the highest total in the state since Feb. 4. The active case total in the state on August 1 was 2,480.

In Kanawha County, there were 1,808 active cases reported on Wednesday. On August 1, there were 205 active cases in the county.

“If you look at the graphs, we have seen cases go up steadily throughout the past winter months. When you look at the rate of acceleration of the number of cases we are seeing, it is almost a vertical line straight up and that’s alarming,” Young said.

There are 647 hospitalizations reported in the state by the DHHR on Wednesday, closing in on the state’s peak in the pandemic of 818 in January. Hospitalizations were around 50 in mid-July.

Young said when the hospitalizations numbers are dug into, it shows that those who get vaccinated are much less likely to be hospitalized. Young said the county expects only 5% of breakthrough cases after receiving a vaccine.

“98% of hospitalizations nationwide and in the Kanawha Valley are unvaccinated individuals, especially those in the ICU. 99% of the deaths we have seen from the beginning to the end of COVID currently are in unvaccinated individuals,” she said.

Young also said an alarming rate of those who get tested for the virus do not pick up the phone with the health department calls to share they are positive. Young said in recent days less than 50% of patients pick up the phone to receive their positive diagnosis and that’s not good.

“It is getting very difficult when we can’t reach almost half of the people who are positive. We are losing the opportunity to contain disease because we can’t do adequate contact tracing,” she said.

There are two vaccination and testing clinics by the KCHD including one on Thursday at the Schoenbaum Center from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. There will be a Sunday clinic at the KCHD on Lee Street from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.