Continuing West Virginia’s trend of leading the nation in rates of successful vaccine administration and rollout, our state recently saw the lowest number of active COVID-19 cases since Halloween last year. Even though this was only a short 5 months ago, this day feels exceedingly far away; but thankfully, COVID-19’s presence and it’s steady decline is a welcome feeling in a year of quarantine that has seemed to go on forever.

In a report in The Wheeling Intelligencer, the Department of Health and Human Resources stated that the current number of active cases sits at around 5,415 within the state of West Virginia, the same number seen on Oct. 31, 2020; the highest number of cases seen within the state peaked at 29,257 on Jan. 10, 2021. Specific to Wheeling, Ohio county has seen a total of 3,846 cases and 66 deaths due to COVID-19.

Marshall County had not yet updated their information at the time of the article’s publication, but it was stated that “Hancock and Brooke counties were green and Ohio and Marshall counties were yellow on the DHHR’s Tuesday (Mar. 9, 2021) COVID-19 alert map. Hancock County had an infection rate of 4.96 cases per 100,000 residents and a percent positivity of 1.34. Brooke County had an infection rate of 9.12 cases per 100,000 residents and a percent positivity of 2.47,” while “Ohio County had an infection rate of 15.52 cases per 100,000 residents and a percent positivity of 3.03. Marshall County had an infection rate of 17.78 cases per 100,000 residents and a percent positivity of 3.19.”

Hopefully this is only the beginning of a continuing decline, especially as more and more residents of the state of West Virginia are vaccinated and adhering to social distancing guidelines and mask mandates; at the same time, however, we can be thankful and proud of our state that because of our efforts and success in vaccination rollout, these rules and regulations appear to also be on the decline as they relax in companionship with the growing safety and defense against COVID-19 within our state.