MORGANTOWN — In case you haven’t heard it before: Get tested.
That was once again the refrain at Monday’s COVID-19 briefing from the governor’s office.
“Most of us aren’t concerned to the level we really truly should be,” Gov. Jim Justice said at the start of the briefing.
Numbers keep climbing across the country. COVID-19 Czar Clay Marsh mentioned that El Paso, Texas, has brought in its third portable morgue.
West Virginia saw a number of new highs or near-highs on Monday. Active cases were an all-time high, 5,558. Cumulative positivity – where 3% or less is the benchmark – was 2.95%, the highest since April 25, when it was 2.99 (it was 3.54 on April 24; it’s been steadily rising since June 18). Hospitalizations were an all-time high of 254 and COVID-related ICU hospitalizations also were an all-time high of 84.
“You’ve got to show up and get tested,” Justice said. Some time ago, Justice and his team set a testing goal of 7,000 per day. But they’ve upped the ante. Now they’d like to see 12,000 a day. Justice said he’d prefer 20,000.
Justice said he’s backing his wish with money: 12,000 tests per day would cost about $1.2 million per day. Actual testing numbers have bounced up and down – a high of 13,091 on Oct. 25, only 6,853 on Sunday.
If you don’t get tested, he said once again, and you have the virus but no symptoms, you could infect someone or you could develop subsequent health problems down the road. “We can’t stop it if we don’t know.”
Adjutant General James Hoyer reported that on Monday the National Guard was supporting 40 testing sites operating in 19 counties, along with 80 Guard members helping local health departments with such things as contact tracing and epidemiology.
The Dominion Post asked if any schools that operate as polling places would be closed Tuesday – Election Day – either for outbreaks or because of their county map color (the Department of Health and Human Resources map showed 10 orange counties and one red; the school map had five orange and one red).
DHHR Secretary Bill Crouch said most school issues are confined to cleaning individual classrooms and it’s rare for an entire school to close. So he wasn’t aware of any school polling places that would be closed, but county clerks have the final say on polling places in their counties.
Justice fielded a question on how families should consider gathering for the holidays, where some may be coming from or going to hot spots.
“It’s a touch call there’s no question about that,” he said. “We’ve go to go ahead and live.”
The real issue is how the families conduct their gatherings, he said. They may spend long periods close together without masks. Along with exercising all the well-known precautions, he suggested family members get tested before they gather, and maybe take everyone’s temperature when they arrive.
Tweet David Beard@dbeardtdp Email dbeard@dominionpost.com
