WHEELING, W.Va. — Ohio County Commission President Tim McCormick says the strict COVID-19 mandate put into place for the Ohio County Courthouse building and the county employees inside has worked and will continue to be in place.
On July 1, McCormick signed an emergency pandemic outside travel policy for employees of the Ohio County Commission and/or workers for a court entity in the City-County Building in downtown Wheeling. Guidelines for those working and doing business inside the building, that includes a mask mandate, has also been in place.
McCormick told MetroNews on Wednesday that not everybody was on board with the travel mandate but the commission continues to back it.
“The next day the state Supreme Court came out with their mandate and it was extremely similar to ours,” he said. “There were just a couple of minor changes. Basically what we did was the right thing, we feel like we did by the right thing.”
The travel mandate includes employees going on vacation or anywhere 100 miles or more from the Ohio County Courthouse to get tested for the virus upon return and stay at home for 48 hours or until results come back. McCormick said the mandate has been used in the last month for numerous vacations.
Any person to test positive for the virus must stay home and self-quarantine for two weeks. Employees may opt-out of testing for the virus when returning from out of town but they must notify the Ohio County Health Department and self-quarantine for two weeks.
Since that mandate was put into place, the commission also disallowed any committee meetings or group meetings inside the county courthouse.
According to the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Ohio County has 259 COVID-19 cases with 215 recovered as of Wednesday. When the mandate was put into place in early July, Ohio County had 107 cases.
McCormick said the public understands the mandates for the building and has cooperated.
“We are just trying to cut down on the traffic. We recommended that people call in for appointments for the business that needs to be done,” he said.
“The public seems to be following it because they know what is going on. We are just trying to protect them, their families and our employees.”