Belmont County Health Department Deputy Director Robert Sproul reports on active cases of the coronavirus in Belmont County. On Tuesday, he said the county has had 25 cases with eight recovered. Four of the cases have been hospitalized. This comes after Belmont County’s first coronavirus-related death Monday.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Two more people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Belmont County as of Tuesday, and a fourth person is hospitalized according to Deputy Director Robert Sproul of the Belmont County Health Department.

Sproul said Belmont County had stood at 23 positive cases Monday, then another case was added later in the evening. A 25th case was similarly added Tuesday. This is an increase from 14 last week.

“The state added one. That was one of the late ones they put on,” Sproul said. “That’s the bad thing — if the state doesn’t get it by 10:30 (a.m.) they don’t count it in the numbers at 2 p.m. We had a private lab send us one late in the afternoon.”

Sproul said one of the new cases was a man and the other a woman. Both are older than 50. Sproul said both were among the lists of contacts with other infected Belmont County residents.

“They’re in quarantine now,” Sproul said, adding his office continues to reach out to anyone those patients might have had contact with.

Meanwhile, another woman has been hospitalized. Sproul was unclear on her exact age but said she was a senior citizen. The new patient joins three others, including a married man and woman in their 80s and another woman, age undetermined. Sproul said information about hospitalized patients is limited.

“As far as I know they’re being well taken care of and we probably won’t know anything ’til they’re released,” Sproul said.

“The number (of cases and potential cases) keeps climbing,” he said.

“Everybody keeps talking about the surge of the numbers. We’re waiting to watch for that,” Sproul said, adding new information comes from the office of Gov. Mike DeWine daily.

So far of the positive cases, eight have recovered and been cleared from quarantine since the first announcement March 13 of the virus’ presence in Belmont County. Sproul said several more people should be cleared out of quarantine today.

On Monday, Belmont County had its first death related to the virus. Sproul expressed his sympathies for the patient, who was a man in his 90s with underlying conditions, and for all involved.

There has been some discussion locally about making use of the former East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry, which has been closed since September, to house patients in the event of a surge in the number of illness cases.

“They’re still going through the evaluations. We spoke to the (Belmont County Emergency Management Agency) and they talked with the state, and it sounds like the state is making a schedule to go to locations they’re wanting to look at,” Sproul said. “We’re waiting to see if we were included in that list.”