MORGANTOWN — Hours after complaining that active COVID-19 case numbers have been inaccurately reported, Gov. Jim Justice accepted the the resignation of State Health Officer and Bureau for Public Health Commissioner Cathy Slemp.
Justice and Department of Health and Human Resources Bill Crouch announced the resignation late Wednesday afternoon. They said Justice expressed to Crouch his lack of confidence in Slemp’s leadership of the bureau due to a series of recent events involving issues under her direct control. Crouch then asked for Slemp’s resignation, which she offered immediately.
The announcement didn’t connect the dots, but during his press briefing a few hours earlier he was exceptionally grim as he talked at length about the misreporting of active cases.
“I depend on people and I really depend on their accuracy,” he said. He wants the right numbers. “I am hung up on that. It’s not good enough for me it’s close.”
He said that during his recent briefings, he’s been reporting more active cases than they really have. While the error looks good in a way – things aren’t as bad as they seemed – “That isn’t going to cut it with me. It’s their job to tell me the right number.”
On Monday, he said, he reported six active cases at Huttonsville Correctional Center, down from the peak of 118 the first week of June. But no one took the reduced number off the DHHR’s tally of active cases statewide.
Justice said during the briefing he wasn’t going to throw anyone under the bus, and he was still looking into the problem, but he specifically mentioned DHHR and Slemp’s office regarding the failure. “You’re not doing your job and you’re not having the passion behind what you’re putting together.”
And that trickles up to his office and down to the public. “If I overstate the number of actives, I’m scaring you when I don’t need to scare you,” he said.
He returned to the issue two more times, once when reporting the number of actives at Huttonsville was down to three as of Wednesday. “We got to get our act together and clean up our numbers and get our numbers right. If you don’t want me on your hind end you best better get your numbers right to me.”
And later, in response to a question about the problem, he said, Either you’ve got to be asleep or just absolutely not doing your job to have not updated those into the active versus recovered categories.”
The numbers adjustment was evident on DHHR’s COVID-19 dashboard. On Monday, the dashborad show 778 active cases as of Sunday morning and 782 Monday morning. On Wednesday, Monday’s total was revised down to 755, dipping down to 688 on Tuesday and up a bit to 698 Wednesday morning.
In the Wednesday afternoon announcement, Justice said he expressed his appreciation for Slemp’s service to West Virginia, especially throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
On other matters, Justice talked about the COVID-19 case spikes and continued deaths – now at 92 – and the Myrtle Beach-related outbreaks.
Justice said the rise in cases could lead to extreme choices. We could batten down in our houses and still lose people, but be somewhat safer. Or we could keep trying to go forward with some genuine level of higher risk.
Considering the economic consequences of shutting down again, he said his course for now is to go forward and try to manage risk by trying to get everyone on board with mask wearing, social distancing and the other precautions.
Myrtle Beach outbreaks climbed from six counties on Monday to 11 as of Wednesday, with 19 separate outbreaks in those counties. The active case numbers are: Preston, 32 with the possibility of 10 more; Berkeley, 13; Cabell, 5; Fayette, 1; Greenbrier, 2; Kanawha, 8; Mercer, 1; Putnam, 2; Raleigh, 6; Ritchie, 1; Taylor, 1.
He urged, “If you’re thinking of going to Myrtle Beach, rethink what you’re doing.”
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