ST. CLAIRSVILLE — The Belmont County Health Board heard Monday that more residents have died of COVID-19.

Deputy Health Commissioner Robert Sproul gave updates about the coronavirus during the board’s monthly meeting.

He said 154 deaths have been associated with the virus, including three that occurred over the weekend.

Afterward, Sproul said his staff was still receiving information and he did not yet know the ages or other details associated with the latest fatalities.

In answer to a question from board member Irene Louda, Sproul determined that 11 people have died after contracting the virus since the December meeting. Louda asked if the number of new deaths could be noted at each meeting.

“That would be beneficial to all of us as a board, to give us the figure of change,” she said.

Sproul agreed, adding that the health department’s Facebook page is regularly updated.

Belmont County Health Commissioner George Cholak asked for clarification.

“Are the deaths that were reported directly related to COVID or did they have comorbidity conditions?” he asked.

“A lot of them are comorbid,” Tiffany Vcelka, executive administrative assistant, said. “I’ve only seen maybe two that only had COVID listed.”

In answer to another question from Louda, Vcelka said the variant of coronavirus is not listed on the death certificates.

Sproul said there have been 12,587 confirmed cases in the county since the pandemic’s onset.

There are 1,329 active cases and 11,095 recovered. Sproul said nine people are currently hospitalized with the virus.

Sproul also addressed the issue of potential contacts being notified late.

Sproul said the Ohio Department of Health has contracted a private firm to contact people who have been exposed.

“Last note they were six days behind on contacting people, so there’s been a lot of issues with that.

“When they’re calling the people, they’re saying they’re calling on behalf of the Belmont County Health Department, so (the public) is calling us,” Sproul said. “Now that the state does the five-day quarantine guidance, some people are getting called after.”

He said the state has been notified of the delays.

Sproul consulted a map listing COVID-19 rates by region. Belmont County is in Region 8, the eastern part of the state, which has seen an increase by 24.3 percent in the past seven days.

“All across the state, the numbers are going up,” Sproul said. “Everybody is seeing elevated numbers.”

He also said more test kits are on order from the state, but there has been no indication of when they will be delivered.

“They’re going to give us an allocation. I don’t know how many I’m getting or when I’m getting them,” he said. “They’re going to send us what they can. … Right now we don’t have any.”

Sproul said his office tries to limit kits to three per family.

“Last shipment we received 588 kits and they were gone in less than 24 hours,” Sproul said.

He added that testing is being performed at East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry and at the former Ohio Valley Medical Center site in Wheeling.

Vaccination clinics are held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. every Wednesday at the health department office, 68501 Bannock-Uniontown Road, St. Clairsville. The public can register for a shot at coronavirus.ohio.gov.

“We would love for this to move on. Hopefully omicron’s it and it fades away, but different agencies are saying different things, different experts are saying different things, and unfortunately we’re watching to see where it goes,” Sproul said.