Ohio County Reports 84th COVID Death | News, Sports, Jobs

The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department reported one new COVID-19-related death in its Tuesday night update. That marked the 84th COVID-related death in the county since the pandemic began.

The department also announced six new cases, bringing that total to 4,234. The Marshall County Health Department had not updated its website with its new totals as of 10 p.m. Tuesday.

Brooke County moved Tuesday from yellow to green, the safest category on the Department of Health and Human Resources COVID-19 alert map, joining Ohio County as one of two green counties in the Northern Panhandle. Hancock County was yellow on Tuesday’s map, while Marshall County was gold.

Meanwhile, West Virginia will receive $1.88 million from the federal stimulus to track the spread of new COVID-19 variants in the state.

The state has so far confirmed cases of virus variants from the U.K., California and Brazil, mostly concentrated in the northern part of the state and eastern panhandle.

Some variants are seen as more infectious and deadly, and officials urge residents to get vaccinated in order to stamp out their spread.

“Several new COVID-19 variants have been found in West Virginia which is concerning because of the higher rate of transmission and mortality,” U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., said in a statement announcing the new funding.

The funding is allocated through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and aims to expand genomic sequencing to identify variants.