Huntington, Wheeling get one-week reprieve as state officials use Thursday data for alert map

News Release
September 12, 2020

Cabell, Ohio and three other counties will not have to close schools or stop sports competitions after the West Virginia Department of Education chose to use COVID-19 data from Thursday to compute their weekly alert map.

That means Saturday’s record 347 new cases were not included in the weekly tabulation. While 12 counties were listed as orange Saturday morning, only seven are orange on the Saturday evening map.

Cabell, Ohio, Pocahontas, Wayne and Calhoun counties are all listed as yellow despite turning orange earlier Saturday. Upshur is yellow on this week’s map.

Below is the full press release from state:

The West Virginia Department of Education (WVDE) has posted the September 12, 2020, School Alert System Map update. This map, guided by information from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and vetted by the COVID-19 Data Review Panel, determines which counties will hold in-person and blended instruction, and it will direct the level of extracurricular activities permitted for the week of September 13-20.

The weekly updates are posted at https://wvde.us/reentrymetrics.

The color-coded counties are as follows:

Red (Substantial Community Transmission): Counties that are red must move to remote learning mode. No extracurricular competitions or practices are permitted. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in red include Monongalia.

Orange (Heightened Community Transmission): Counties in orange will be required to activate remote learning on Monday. Extracurricular practices are limited to conditioning only and sport-specific practicing is not permitted. Marching band activities must be limited to outdoors only. For complete details, please visit the WVDE metrics and protocols at https://wvde.us/reentrymetrics.

Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue. Counties in orange include Boone, Fayette, Kanawha, Logan, Mingo, Monroe and Putnam.

Yellow (Increased Community Transmission): Counties that are yellow will continue with in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings at all times for grades 6 and above. Please refer to your county for specific requirements. Counties in yellow include Berkeley, Brooke, Cabell, Calhoun, Clay, Doddridge, Grant, Greenbrier, Hancock, Harrison, Jackson, Jefferson, Lincoln, McDowell, Mercer, Ohio, Pocahontas, Raleigh, Roane, Summers, Taylor, Tucker, Upshur and Wayne.

Green (Minimal Community Transmission): Counties that are green will continue with in-person instruction. Extracurricular practices and competitions may occur. Health and safety precautions include, at a minimum, face coverings in grades 3 and above when students are outside of core groups and in congregant settings and on school buses. Please refer to your county for specific face covering requirements. Counties in green include Barbour, Braxton, Gilmer, Hardy, Hampshire, Lewis, Marion, Marshall, Mason, Mineral, Morgan, Nicholas, Pendleton, Pleasants, Preston, Randolph, Ritchie, Tyler, Webster, Wetzel, Wood, Wirt and Wyoming.

Each week, the COVID-19 Data Review Panel will verify the data used to inform the WVDE School Alert System Map to ensure both accuracy and reliability. For the panel’s review, data from the DHHR’s County Alert Map as of 11:59 p.m. Thursday, September 10, 2020, was captured and thoroughly analyzed. This may result in differences between the WVDE map and the DHHR County Alert Map.

The county color announced each Saturday at 5 p.m. will be in effect until the following Saturday at the same time. The only exception is if a county turns red during the week. That change would be made immediately to the WVDE map because all in-person instruction and extracurricular and athletic activities would be suspended.

All schools, both public and private, are expected to adhere to the WVDE School Alert System map to guide in-person instruction and extracurricular activities.