CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — The Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department has confirmed that three separate COVID-19 outbreak incidents have occurred in the county within the past five days.

According to the health department’s administrator Chad Bundy, a group of cases is considered an outbreak if there are three or more confirmed cases — or in the event that the case occurs in a nursing home, only one case is considered an outbreak.

Those three events, according to Bundy, are as follows:

• The Harrison County Prosecutor’s Office had one person test positive approximately 5 days ago after which the entire office was tested and two more people were confirmed as having COVID-19. The entire courthouse was offered testing and since then, no further positive cases have resulted from that event.
• The Harrison County Board of Education has had three maintenance workers who have tested positive. The county superintendent was alerted of the cases and the workers have since been isolated and those with close contact have gone into quarantine.
• Murray Energy’s Harrison County Mine, formerly known as the Robinson Run Mine, in Wallace has had four workers, from the 7 North Portal, confirmed positive for COVID-19. Since those workers have tested positive, the health department has given instructions to the mine in order to prevent the spread of the illness.

Bundy said that the health department is working closely with the Department of Health and Human Resources’ Public Health Department and the Office of Emergency services in order to contain the current outbreak and prevent further spread.

Due to the recency of these events, Bundy said it is difficult to tell if additional spread of COVID-19 has resulted from the outbreaks, because it takes at least five days before a test can tell if someone has the virus.