Upshur County is once again categorized as orange on the official school alert map published each week by the West Virginia Department of Education. That means in-person classes and sports competitions will be prohibited for at least the next seven days.

This will mark the fifth straight week Upshur County schools have been closed. Last week, the county was green on the map but an outbreak in the transportation department led to schools again being closed just hours before they were due to reopen.

According to data from the W.Va. Department of Health and Human Resources, Upshur County is orange in both infection rate and positivity percentage.

Here’s this week’s press release on the school map:

The West Virginia Department of Education has posted the October 31, 2020, Saturday Education Map that determines which counties will hold in-person and blended instruction and directs the level of extracurricular activities permitted. The map is developed with information from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) and vetted by the COVID-19 Data Review Panel.

The weekly updates are posted at https://wvde.us/reentrymetrics. County plans should be reviewed for additional requirements.

Red (Substantial Community Transmission): Counties must move to remote learning. 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.

Red counties include: Mingo

Orange (Heightened Community Transmission): Remote learning required. Extracurricular activities are limited to conditioning only and sport-specific practicing is not permitted. Marching band is limited to outdoors only. Staff may report to their schools, as determined by the county. Essential support services, including special education and meals, will continue.

Orange counties include: Berkeley, Morgan, Upshur, Wayne, Wyoming

Gold (Elevated Community Transmission): In-person instruction permitted with increased mitigations including face coverings for children grades 3 and above at all times. Extracurricular activities are permitted in-county (with schools from the same county) and with other gold counties.

Gold counties include: Braxton, Clay, Jackson, Jefferson, Logan, Marshall, Monroe, Putnam, Tyler, Wood

Yellow (Increased Community Transmission): Counties 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.

Yellow counties include: Barbour, Boone, Cabell, Hampshire, Lincoln, Mercer, Mineral, Ohio, Pleasants, Raleigh, Ritchie, Roane, Summers, Webster, Wetzel, Wirt

Green (Minimal Community Transmission): 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.

Green counties include: Brooke, Calhoun, Doddridge, Fayette, Gilmer, Grant, Greenbrier, Hancock, Hardy, Harrison, Kanawha, Lewis, Marion, Mason, McDowell, Monongalia, Nicholas, Pendleton, Pocahontas, Preston, Randolph, Taylor, Tucker

The COVID-19 Data Review Panel reviewed and verified the data used to inform the WVDE Saturday Education Map to ensure both accuracy and reliability. The panel considered data captured at 11:59 p.m., Thursday, October 29, 2020. As a result, there may be 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 with the exception of a county turning red during the course of the week. Once reviewed, that change may 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 Saturday Education Map to guide in-person instruction and extracurricular activities.