WHEELING — As infection rate of COVID-19 has continued to rise around the state of West Virginia this week, Ohio County moved from gold to orange Thursday on the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ color-coded COVID-19 alert map.

According to the map, the county’s percent positivity moved to 5.04. If the county remains in orange when the West Virginia Department of Education releases its school opening map Saturday, the county will have to remain in remote learning. It also would keep the Wheeling Park and Wheeling Central football teams from participating in the state playoffs.

Marshall County remained in orange on Thursday’s COVID alert map, with a percent positivity of 6.75.

According to the Marshall County Health Department Facebook page’s late Thursday update, the county confirmed 30 new positive cases and three new probable cases. Marshall County now has 623 confirmed cases, 78 probable cases, 10 people hospitalized and eight deaths. The Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department announced in an email late Thursday that 35 new cases had been confirmed.

Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department Administrator Howard Gamble said he believes there are two reasons for the increase in reported numbers over the past few days.

“We have 14 testing sites. … So you’ve got an abundance of testing. Therefore, you’re going to find a few positives,” Gamble commented. “So, yes, we’re going to find some more (positive tests) because we’re going to find more opportunities to find it.”

Gamble also points out that 16 of the 59 new cases reported on Wednesday were at Peterson, a long-term care facility.

“Of that 59 that we saw, we’re seeing a lot of people who were rapid-tested. … so it is concerning seeing what we have,” he added.

Gamble said a lot of the newly reported cases are the result of someone attending an event, contracting the disease and spreading it within a household, a business, or a group.

“We can link a lot of these (cases) together in small groups. … So yes, from the testing, we’re seeing positive (results), but we’re also seeing it because we’ve been a little more active as a group, as a society, as a county, with activities where we either let our guard down or people there were positive and didn’t know it,” he explained.

He said people often will attend an event feeling they may be suffering from just a seasonal allergy or something similar, when it turns out they are carrying and spreading the disease without realizing it. As a result of scenarios such as this, the county picks up a significant increase in more positive results.

Gamble is quick to point out that we are experiencing respiratory-based “infectious disease” that has the high rate ability to be transmitted from one person to the next.

“If we’re in large groups or we let our guard down by going to an event, a dinner … or a service of some kind, or a gathering, and we think we are socially distanced, but we’re very close, we are going to spread this very quickly,” Gamble explained. “Because it is respiratory-based, it’s finding one host after another after another and we’re getting a lot of positives.”