West Virginia Governor Jim Justice Walking a Fine Line on COVID-19 Response
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CHARLESTON -- Gov. Jim Justice admitted Monday to trying to please both sides -- those hesitant about vaccines and those seeking a return to mask mandates -- as the state tries to get more people vaccinated and slow the spread of the new surge of COVID-19.
"Yeah … we're absolutely trying to appease both groups," Justice said during Monday's coronavirus briefing at the State Capitol Building. "The reason we're trying to do that is we're trying to keep everybody moving together."
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations continue to climb in West Virginia due to spread of the delta variant, while the state's vaccination efforts continue to keep death numbers low and breakthrough infections nearly non-existent.
According to data released Monday by the Department of Health and Human Resources, active COVID-19 cases jumped to 5,949 Sunday, a 39% increase from 4,287 active cases last Monday. The 5,949 active case number is the highest number since May 18. The new numbers include 1,482 new cases received since Friday's update.
DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch said the total number of cases could increase as much as 700 on top of any new cases due to a glitch found last week in the state's COVID-19 case reporting system.
"The state surveillance system went through a significant upgrade last week that's caused a lag in cases being reported to the dashboard," Crouch said. "The total number of cases will increase significantly, as these are cases from the five-day period which began last Thursday … we're working hard to fix those issues as quickly as possible."
The DHHR County Alert System map shows 23 out of 55 counties in the orange category - one category away from red - for high infection rates and percent of positivity. Three counties - Wetzel, Barbour, and Berkeley - were in the red for having the worst infection rates and percent of positivity. The daily percent of positivity for the state Monday was 9.1%.
Health experts said the surge is due to the delta COVID-19 variant that ravaged India several months ago and has spread across the world. DHHR reported 322 cases of the delta variant in the state, though due to a slow turnaround time in genome testing health experts believe there is more delta spread than the data suggests.
The new surge has affected the state's hospital system, though DHHR had no new numbers since last Friday, when 324 people were hospitalized. Out of that number, 110 cases were in ICU beds. These are the highest numbers for hospitalizations and ICU usage since Feb. 11 - one month after hospitalizations peaked last winter at 818 cases.
Despite the increase in active cases and hospitalizations, deaths have managed to stay at low levels. Only three deaths were reported since Friday's briefing. State officials credit the high COVID-19 vaccination rate among West Virginians age 50 and older for continuing to prevent deaths. However, Justice predicted an increase in deaths as case numbers go up.
"We're going to have more people die. That's all there is to it," Justice said. "It's time to be on your toes, West Virginia. It's time, absolutely, to be vaccinated."
After reaching a previous partial vaccination goal of 85% for residents age 65 and older, West Virginia reached the new goal of 90% for partial vaccinations Monday - meaning that 90% of those age 65 and older have at least the first dose of either the two-dose Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Residents age 50 and older are just 1.5 points away from reaching their new partial vaccination goal of 85% after reaching an earlier goal of 80% several weeks ago.
The data shows that the vaccines are preventing deaths, with 0.006% of deaths in West Virginia coming from fully vaccinated people. The vast majority of deaths are coming from people who have not been vaccinated. The vaccines also appear to be protecting people from overall infection, with 0.32 percent of vaccinated West Virginians developing COVID-19.
But overall partial vaccination numbers for all eligible West Virginians age 12 and older have improved slowly to 69.9%. The number of partial vaccinations for the last seven days was 9,582 doses, down from 10,789 partial vaccinations the previous seven days. According to James Hoyer, leader of the joint interagency task force for vaccines, more than 7,100 doses have been administered since Friday.
"We cannot stop," Hoyer said. "We need to continue to raise that as well as our other age categories. Particularly, our young West Virginians."
Dr. Clay Marsh, the state coronavirus czar, said most of the current spread is within the 30-50 age category. Marsh also said there are more children being hospitalized now than at any other time during the pandemic.
"As we look across the country and we look at our children and our young adults … we find that the majority of people in hospitals around America and in West Virginia are those who are not vaccinated," Marsh said.
Justice stressed again that state health experts are not advising him to reinstitute an indoor mask mandate, though Marsh did encourage West Virginians to be proactive to wear masks on a volunteer basis. Justice said he would reinstitute an indoor mask mandate if recommended, but he fears a new round of mandates might make the vaccine-hesitant double down on their stubbornness.
"I'm trying to skate right across a razor blade," Justice said. "The easiest thing would be let's just do mandates and let's go straight to masks. It may make things better, but really and truly right now there's not clear enough evidence from our medical team and everyone to move just immediately to that."