All schools in Upshur County will close at 1 p.m. today. All B-UHS sporting events today are canceled.

Nursing home in Morgantown now reporting 20 confirmed cases of COVID-19

coronavirus cell

A total of 20 people have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Sundale Nursing Home in Morgantown, officials said in a press conference Wednesday afternoon.

Sixteen residents and four staff members have tested positive, Sundale medical director Carl Schrader said. A total of 28 residents and 24 staff are negative, he added, with 76 tests still pending.

“I want the public to know that every resident that is positive is in isolation,” Schrader said.

All the positive tests have come from the facility’s east wing.

“[There are] no positive cases on the west side of the building to date, and we hope to keep it that way,” Schrader said.

Currently, the home is being cleaned using an ionization spray of hydrogen peroxide, the same type of cleaning WVU used a few years ago during a significant flu outbreak, nursing home officials said during the press conference. They are also working to create a COVID-19 isolation unit in the facility.

Although the WVDHHR had not updated the statewide total of confirmed cases as of 1 p.m. Wednesday, the number was clearly ticking up. In addition to the new positive results in Monongalia County, the Charleston Area Medical Center was reporting 17 confirmed cases, an increase of at least nine from Tuesday.

Separately, the Marion County Health Department said a resident of that county had tested positive, as did an employee at the Louis A. Johnson VA Medical Center in Clarksburg.

Upshur-Buckhannon Health Department nurse director Sue McKisic said that to her knowledge, no COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in Upshur County as of Wednesday afternoon.

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