West Virginia Governor Jim Justice's COVID-19 response press conference on Friday featured little in terms of COVID issues.

 

Friday's briefing began by Justice offering his condolences to the families of the most recent COVID-related deaths. There have been 38 since his last report, bringing the state's total to 7.056.

 

In other updated statistics provided by the Department of Health and Human Resources, 611 new cases have been reported during the previous 24 hours. West Virginia's active cases are at 2,135. The cumulative percent positive rate is at 8.16 and the daily percent positive rate is at 12.35.

 

There have been 520,071 recoveries and as of today there are 196 hospitalizations with 23 patients in ICUs and six on ventilators.

 

On the daily county alret map, 24 counties are green, 31 counties, including Harrison, are yellow.

 

There are currently 70 outbreaks in long-term care facilities and 0 in churches. In statewide correctional facilities there are 77 cases among inmates and 20 among staff.

 

Dr. Ayne Amjad was the only member of Justice's health team present for the press conference. There was however a guest appearance by Dr. Lisa McBride from Cardinal Pediatrics in Morgnatown.

 

Both Amjad and McBride focused on the vaccination shots that are now available for children under the age of five.

 

"It's really important to get these children vaccinated," McBride said. "They have been waiting the longest."

 

Amjad said once the state's allotment of doses for children arrives it should be approximately 34,000 in total, roughly 17,00 each for Pfizer and Moderna.

 

There were two waves of orders and West Virginia preordered a total of 21,700. Amjad said about half of the 21,700 have arrived which equals about 1/3 of the the total allotment. 

 

Video of Friday's press conference can be viewed below.