BELMONT COUNTY — With rumors and reports of COVID-19 cases bursting at the seams once again, information is becoming more scarce regarding numbers and any recent information. Belmont County Deputy Health Commissioner Rob Sproul said that WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, which has been their main source of feedback regarding COVID results, has stopped releasing information, but was unclear why.

Sproul said they are hearing of more people becoming sick and also an uptick in requests for home test kits.

“The issue we’re running into with Belmont is, you know, most of our testing was over in West Virginia in Wheeling Hospital and they have stopped reporting,” Sproul said, which means they no longer have any numbers coming in from week to week.

“The only thing we are getting in is the Ohio side so, East Ohio and some of the other testing facilities in Belmont are reporting to us,” he said, “but Wheeling is no longer reporting cases. West Virginia basically said they were going to stop reporting positives.”

Spokesperson for WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital, Thea Gompers, said they are not reporting numbers because the hospital no longer tests the public for COVID and haven’t in a long time.

“We are not doing public testing, none,” she said.

The only testing Wheeling Hospital does conduct is for employees who are symptomatic and patients that are scheduled for surgery “either here or other hospitals.”

Sproul said the last report his department received was a few weeks ago where he saw a rise in COVID cases, though the hospitalizations were staying well down. Jefferson County Health Commissioner Andrew Henry said this as well, as his county is seeing a mushrooming of cases but hospitalizations are also down.

“It’s still here and they’re saying that the new variant is much more contagious …” Sproul said in referring to the BA.5 variant that has become dominant throughout the region and likely the U.S.

Henry said they are only seeing reports once per week as part of the Ohio Department of Health’s part to “navigate” away from the pandemic. He said a July 7 report for Jefferson showed 195 cases for a two-week period but then it spiked to 250 cases for another two-week time span.

“While that’s going up I would say that the positive is the fact that our hospitalizations have remained extremely low,” Henry said. “I don’t recall during this time during the month of June or July really, seeing any more than five hospitalizations at a given time.”

Henry said that, though some people are reporting feeling fairly sick over a couple of days, they are recovering “pretty rapidly.” When asked about cases spiking but hospitalizations being down, which is opposite of what was reported over the past two years, Henry said that, to him, it appears to be “evolving into an influenza” where we will probably see the BA.5 or other variants, in waves.

“No one’s really going to be naturally immune forever, obviously,” Henry explained. “As the virus mutates, people need to understand that. Your chances of getting the virus are going to increase over time if you’ve had COVID in the past.”

All four area counties of Belmont, Harrison, Jefferson and Monroe are listed as a high-risk category for COVID. As of July 24, Belmont County, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed 109 cases in the past week and a case rate of 162.67 per 100,000, which is actually down a little more than 19%.

For Harrison County: 259.31 per 100,000 with 23 cases in the past seven days and a case rate of 152.93, down 41%. Jefferson County: 240.34 cases per 100,000 with 146 cases in the past seven days and a case rate of 223.50, down 7%.

Monroe County showed 49 cases in the past week and a case rate of a whopping 358.87 cases per 100,000, resulting in a percent change of more than 104%, according to the CDC.

Officials from Monroe and Harrison County could not be reached.