If Gov. Jim Justice wants people to stop accusing him and his administration of manipulating West Virginia’s COVID-19 numbers, then he really needs to lock in a counting strategy that doesn’t make it look like they’re manipulating the numbers.
We understand that flexibility is important during a time when things are constantly changing. However, using two different maps to make a variety of public-health-impacting decisions, each of which uses the lowest of two possible metrics (though it’s not always clear which metric is used), but neither of which are on the same webpage … If you’re confused, welcome to the club. Many West Virginians are scratching their heads as they watch the smoke-and-mirrors magic show in Charleston.
One map determines whether or not it’s safe to send children to school and the other map determines … we’re not entirely sure. One map can show that it’s perfectly safe for in-person classes to resume as a green county, while the other map can show that same county as yellow or gold. We’re looking specifically at the school map released
Sept. 26, which determined if school would be in-person or virtual last week, and the County Alert Map the school map was supposed to be based on
(Sept. 24). On the County Alert Map, Monongalia County was yellow, but it was green on the school map, though supposedly both maps use the same metrics: Cases per 100,000 or positivity rate, whichever is less.
Mon wasn’t the only county mysteriously downgraded for the school map: Boone and Fayette counties were orange according to County Alert — which should have meant virtual classes — but appeared as yellow and gold respectively for schools, allowing kids to attend in person.
We’re not saying the governor and his people are manipulating the numbers. But we are saying that the fact the two maps — supposedly relying on the same numbers and measurements — don’t always match is extremely confusing. People aren’t sure which map to look at and which map determines what. Schools are safe but bars aren’t allowed to reopen? We can have afterschool sports but we also have “increased community transmission”? COVID is intertwined in our community but separate from our schools?
All this chaos and confusion is the perfect breeding ground for misinformation, which is the last thing we need right now. Indicating its safe enough for kids to congregate communicates that it’s just as safe for anyone to congregate anywhere. The messages are getting mixed; some people are lulled into a false sense of security, while others remain in panic-mode, because there is no one clear source for them to look to.
These West Virginia COVID maps are a mess. They remind us of that essential magician’s trick: Get the public to watch your left hand so they won’t see what you’re doing with the right. The way these maps are so out of sync makes it feel like Justice is trying to make us focus on the school map so we won’t see the County Alert Map flipping through the shades, getting closer and closer to red.
