T-L File Photo Bridgeport Exempted Village School District Superintendent Brent Ripley reviews business at a board meeting. The district will be switching to remote learning following Thanksgiving.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County is closing in on 2,000 COVID-19 cases since the pandemic began, with almost half those individuals actively infected and isolated at home — but the number of recoveries has also gone up.

Belmont County Deputy Health Director Robert Sproul reported 1,967 total confirmed cases Wednesday. The coronavirus was first brought to the area by residents who traveled to an out-of-state political event and tested positive in March. Sproul said 884 people were isolated with active cases and that another 1,019 have recovered from the illness. Thirty-two residents were hospitalized with the disease Wednesday, and 32 have died after being infected with the virus. Seven of those deaths have occured in the past three weeks, during a continuing surge of cases. Nine of the county’s coronavirus-related deaths were inmates at the Belmont Correctional Institution.

Sproul said there have been caseload increases of more than 90 cases in a single day, but the number of people considered recovered climbed from 946 on Tuesday to more than 1,000 on Wednesday.

More than 200 people were tested Nov. 18 at Ohio University Eastern when the health department worked with the Ohio National Guard. Those test results are being processed and the subjects notified, but Sprould said the labs are backed up. So far, he added, 21 positive cases have been identified from that free testing day.

“We are still waiting for a few more,” he said in a text message.

Most of Belmont County’s public school districts are relying on distance learning or a hybrid of remote and in-person instruction. Some have decided to continue on that path into December, while others will take stock of how best to offer education after Thanksgiving.

Union Local Superintendent Ben Porter said 11 staff and 55 students were quarantined Wednesday due to exposure to the virus. A decision about how classes will be conducted next week will be forthcoming.

“I’ll be waiting until Friday of this week to make a decision on how we come back next week. We’re monitoring. We haven’t had any new cases, which is good, district-wide. Our numbers are starting to level out so we’re just going to play it by ear, look at the numbers, see what’s happening in the county and make the best informed decision as we can when we move forward.”

The Bridgeport Exempted Village School District has managed to offer daily in-person education at most grade levels, but Superintendent Brent Ripley said this will change moving forward since the district has not gone unscathed by the pandemic. Ripley said at this time, he can only give plans on a week-by-week basis.

“Nov. 30 through Dec. 4 we’re going to be on a full remote schedule,” Ripley said. “We were fortunate up ’til last weekend, and we had an uptick in cases. Our current count of positive cases as of last Saturday was nine, so we decided to go remote.

“Our hope is to slow it down and get back into school by Dec. 7, but of course we’ll look at what the data says.”

Ripley said there are two high school students, four middle school students, two elementary school students and one faculty member who have tested positive. He said the majority should be recovered by the end of Thanksgiving break.

“We just wanted to be very cautious moving forward and plan. We’re ready to go with our remote learning plan. It’s a very good remote learning plan,” he said. “We’re going to put that to the test that first week in December.”

High school sports teams are permitted to play, but a new state mandate states that games can only be played without an audience in the stands.

A 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. statewide curfew remains in effect, as are masking and social distancing orders. Gov. Mike DeWine has ordered stiff penalties for businesses that do not enforce masking requirements, including a shut-down of up to 24 hours.