The good news? Hundreds of Ohio County residents have been vaccinated by personnel with the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department since the Pfizer vaccine received full approval from the Federal Drug Administration two weeks ago.
The bad news, according to the director of the Wheeling-Ohio County Emergency Management Agency, is that thousands of citizens have continued to refuse.
According to West Virginia’s Covid Dashboard created and maintained by the Department of Health and Human Resources, 156 new positives have been reported by Ohio County over the last seven days, and 53 percent of those confirmations involve females. Seven children between birth and 4-years-old are included and 23 cases concern residents in the 51-60 age range.
“Compared to last year at this time, the numbers have way over doubled, the amount of women infected has doubled, and after we didn’t see any kids this time last year, we are now seeing more kids getting sick than ever before,” Vargo explained. “That really scares me because Trinity Hospital in Steubenville has a 16-year-old on a ventilator. They tried to send him to UPMC Children’s in Pittsburgh, but they didn’t have room for him.
“Our hospitals in this area are overwhelmed again, and that’s why I can’t imagine why anyone would think this virus isn’t real. Trust me; it’s real,” he said. “The amount of care those patients need is unbelievable, so I just don’t understand why so many people are not taking this seriously.”
Vargo attended a statewide public health conference this week in Charleston, and because of what has been reported in Kanawha County as far as school infections to this point allows him to believe, the same soon will take place here in the Northern Panhandle.
“I think because the Board of Education did not put a mask mandate in place, we’re going to see a lot of positive cases in the future,” Vargo said. “The people from Capitol High School have told me that they have 215 students out of with Covid-19 after just nine days of school.
“Most of those kids haven’t been severely sick, but they did go home to their parents and their grandparents before feeling any of the symptoms. In many, many cases, that’s how this virus has been spread,” he said. “There is no comparison as far as what we dealt with last year and what we are seeing right now. Dr. Clay Marsh, the state’s Covid Czar, said the Delta variant is 1,000 times worse than what we have seen before. 1,000 times worse and that’s scary. Covid always has been a respiratory disease, but this Delta really is attacking the respiratory system much worse than we’ve witnessed.”
The Holiday Season
The DHHR Dashboard indicates there are more than 370 active Covid cases in Ohio County and 350 in Marshall County, as of Friday morning. Those numbers are as bad as they were following the Holiday season of 2020.
Vargo insisted that until at least 80 percent of local residents are vaccinated, the numbers will continue to climb.
“Right now, I would say that we are in trouble as the temperatures cool down and everyone starts going back inside,” Vargo said. “The last couple of months we were seeing maybe one of two positives a week, but then we started seeing the double figures again. The numbers will continue going up and we’re not even close to the peak that we will see here.
“Last week alone, the health department reported 145 positive cases, and 20 of those were children,” he reported. “We have never had that many children infected before. And we’re not talking about 17 and 18 years olds; we’re talking kids as young as 2 and 3 years old.”
There is a way to stop it, but Vargo doesn’t believe anyone wants to hear how.
“There are ways to stop this increase in cases, but no one wants to hear about masks and vaccines apparently. They don’t want to hear about the need for herd immunity, but that’s what it’s going to take,” the EMA director urged. “We have to get the number of people vaccinated into the high-80 percent range for this spike in cases to diminish it, but I don’t know if the people will make that happen.
“When the FDA did fully authorize the Pfizer vaccine, we did see a large increase in people coming in for it, and that’s good news to me,” he added. “It’s all about the same things we’ve been saying for more than a year: Wash your hands, remain socially distanced, wear a mask, and get vaccinated. Until this pandemic finally ends, that’s going to be our advice because that’s what works.”
