CHARLESTON, WV (WOWK) – For the third day in a row, no counties are in red on the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources County Alert System map, and the number in orange continues to drop.

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources released the latest version of the map just prior to West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice’s semi-daily press briefing at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 25.

“This looks one whale of a lot better to me. That’s all there is to it,” Justice said. “So we’re making some real headway somewhere at least.”

The governor and state health officials also said the West Virginia Department of Education will begin publicizing outbreaks among West Virginia Schools as of today, Sept. 25. The governor says an outbreak of COVID-19 is defined as two or more cases in a school that are connected to each other. He says the WV DHHR and WVDE are working with local school boards to collect the data.

According to the County Alert System map, Kanawha, Wayne, Boone and Fayette counties remain in the orange, with Mingo, Logan, Wyoming and Summers counties in gold. Monongalia, Marshall, Putnam, Jackson, Wirt, Doddridge, Barbour, Mineral and Berkeley counties are yellow and all remaining 38 counties in the Mountain State are listed as green.

A county is assigned a color on the map based on the county’s incident rate or positivity rate and determined by which rate has the “better score” according to the WV DHHR website. The system will be in place unless the Percent Positivity is 5% or higher.

Justice says golf teams at schools in orange on the WVDE School Alert System map as of 5 p.m. tomorrow, Saturday, Sept. 26, will be able to play in the upcoming state golf tournament if the coaches and players are tested for COVID-19 before they play. Justice says, after discussions with the WVSSAC and the WVDE, he believes it will be safe for the teams to do so given the small size of high school golf teams and the ability to easily social distance on the golf course.

Justice says the state has 36 active COVID-19 outbreaks in long-term care facilities and four outbreaks at churches in Harrison, Nicholas, Fayette and Kanawha counties.

The governor says Mount Olive Correctional Facility is down to four remaining active COVID-19 cases among inmates. Throughout the state, 13 corrections staff members have active cases of COVID-19, nine of which are at Mount Olive.