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CHARLESTON -- Mostly green for the last few weeks, West Virginia's County Alert System map is showing more yellow as the spread of COVID-19 continues to tick upward.
Active cases across the state totaled 1,658, according to Friday's update from the state Department of Health and Human Resources. The tally was 1,496 Thursday.
"This thing's not gone," Gov. Jim Justice warned Friday in an online briefing.
Active cases in local counties Friday (Thursday) were: Calhoun, 3 (1); Doddridge, 5 (5); Gilmer, 3 (3); Jackson, 10 (5); Pleasants, 1 (1); Ritchie, 3 (1); Roane, 3 (3); Tyler, 6 (6); Wetzel, 3 (3); Wirt, 1 (1); Wood, 37 (28).
The county alert map ranks the rate at which the virus is spreading in five tiers, with green the lowest and red the highest, based on the lower metric of new cases per 100,000 people in a given period or percentage of tests coming back positive.
On Friday, 35 counties remained green, but 20 were a step higher at yellow. Tyler County was the only one in the Mid-Ohio Valley in yellow.
No deaths attributed to the virus were reported Friday, leaving the state's total at 6,893.
"Vaccination is key to preventing serious illness from COVID-19," DHHR Secretary Bill J. Crouch said. "Please utilize the vaccination calculator to determine your next shot."
So far, more than 220,000 calculations have been completed by people looking to determine when their next shot or booster is due, including 20,000 in the last week, said Jim Hoyer, director of the state's Joint Interagency Task Force, during the briefing.
Hospitalizations rose by 10 to 129, according to the DHHR, with 51.9 percent of those individuals considered vaccinated, meaning they've had at least two shots of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines or one of Johnson and Johnson. It does not track whether they have received a booster. Twenty-four people were in intensive care units, one less than Thursday, with 13 of them vaccinated. The number of people on ventilators remained the same, 11, with six unvaccinated.