MORGANTOWN — Gov. Jim Justice announced a new list of planned reopenings during his Monday COVID-19 press briefing.
Indoor malls will be included among the businesses reopening on Thursday. Guidance was to be posted on Monday.
Week 5 of The Comeback will start May 26, the day after Memorial Day. State park cabins and lodges will be open to in-state residents. Indoor and outdoor bars will be permitted to operate at 50% capacity. Museums, visitor centers and zoos will be allowed to reopen, with guidance also to be posted.
On May 30, spas and massage businesses along with limited video lottery retailers (some of them known as hot spots, but not to be confused with the counties under extra COVID-19 restrictions) may resume operation. And casinos can relaunch on June 5.
With the Department of Health and Human Resources shifting COVID-19 tracking to the county level and transitioning from county hot spots to a high alert status based on a seven-day rolling average of new cases not tied to facility outbreaks, Justice announced that the five remaining hot spot counties are going off the list. They are Monongalia, Marion, Harrison, Berkeley and Jefferson.
Justice said cities and counties can now apply for CARES Act funding at grants.wv.gov. He said the use of the dollars is severely restricted right now, as fr the state, but they should apply anyway. He remains confident that the rules will be relaxed to allow backfilling for COVID-19-related losses.
DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch offered an array of numbers.
DHHR conducted community-based testing as part of the African-American and minority task force efforts in four counties on Friday and Saturday: Berkeley, Jefferson, Mercer and Raleigh. They conducted 2,388 total tests and are awaiting results. In Raleigh and Mercer, African-American turnout was just over a third of total turnout.
Given that African-Americans make up about 3% of the state’s population, Justice said, the turnout rate was good but can be much better. Crouch said the task force is offering good advice on such things as how to get the word out better and where to set up testing sites.
Daycare testing is proceeding, he said, with 38% of the state’s centers operating in 37 counties; 587 staff have been tested with three positives, 582 negatives and two pending.
With nursing home testing having concluded a few weeks ago, Justice was asked if there are plans to go back and retest, since the data is somewhat old.
Justice agreed that it’s important to try to do that; staff and residents need to feel safe until a drug or vaccine is ready for use. “This one test is not enough to assure us that everything is going to be safe.”
Bureau of Public Health Commissioner Cathy Slemp expanded on that, saying workers are screened and use PPE to minimize the risk of bringing the virus into the facilities. “They are taking this exceedingly seriously.”
The initial round of testing, she said, showed 11 new COVID-19 cases among residents and 30-some among the staff. That information will guide how ongoing screening should unfold and more will be announced on that at some point.
Monday afternoon’s COVID-19 numbers from the DHHR were 1,502 positive cases out of 77,760 total test results – a 1.93% cumulative rate – with 68 deaths. Justice pointed out that West Virginia’s cumulative rate and percentage of population testing positive are both well below the rates for its neighbors and the nation while the percentage of population tested is far higher.
“We are the opportunity. We are the diamond in the rough,” he said. “Now we really have to be on our game and be careful.”
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