MORGANTOWN — A frustrated and fired-up governor spent a good chunk of his Monday COVID-19 briefing responding to weekend attacks on his enhanced mask mandate.
“It is just silly [to] believe we are stripping away your constitutional freedoms” or coming for your guns, he said. He referred to the outspoken opponents as “outliers” (because 96% of West Virginians support mask wearing, he said) and “rabble rousers.”
Justice updated the mask mandate on Friday, removing the provision that masks aren’t required in public indoor spaces where social distancing is possible; the order now requires masks to be worn at all times, with exceptions for medical issues and when eating or drinking in a restaurant.
Justice talked about a failed state Senate and gubernatorial candidate who posted his personal cell phone number on social media in order to flood him with calls opposing the order. Now he has to cancel that phone. “Now that has got to be taken away, because of a child.”
Justice didn’t name the candidate, but the information he gave pointed at former Delegate Mike Folk, a Berkeley County Republican.
Justice also said a failed write-in gubernatorial candidate was also trying to stir up opposition with talk of suppressing rights. That pointed to Delegate Marshall Wilson, a former Berkeley County Republican who turned Independent.
Justice talked about masks. “I don’t like ’em. I don’t want to wear ’em.” But he defended his decisions. “I am Donald Trump’s best friend.”
He said he’s for guns, life, no new taxes, balanced budgets, veterans, jobs and God. “We have got to quit these crusades. … Can you imagine that these very people are prompted to call me a communist or a dictator? … Its not the thing for you to do as great West Virginians.”
He takes every decision to heart, he said, and works to protect West Virginians. For those who don’t want to wear masks, “What right do they have to infect others or possibly infect others? What right do they have to just do that because that’s what they want to do?”
People call him to tell him the pandemic isn’t real, Justice said. It is, but what if we would find out in a few months it wasn’t – what would we have suffered beyond some inconvenience? “This is not smoke and mirrors. It is the real real thing and it is eating us alive as we speak.”
Justice also noted that a photo that is circulating on social media showing him unmasked during Saturday’s Marshall University football game is out of context. He was outside, in a tent housing the national championship trophy. People were on one side of the tent and he was asked to remove it for the time it took to take the picture. He wore it the rest of the day.
COVID-19 Czar Clay Marsh voiced support for Justice and the mask order, expressing his support in his usual positive and optimistic manner.
“I for one have great faith in out citizenry,” he said. “This call for action, to me, supersedes each one of our individual focus.” We’re here to keep each other safe.
One reported asked Marsh and Bureau for Public Health Commissioner Ayne Amjad about a thought circulating that if you can blow out a candle through you mask the mask is worthless.
Amjad said people don’t need N95 masks, which medical personnel use around infected patients. For everyday use, a cotton mask is adequate.
Marsh agreed, adding that three-ply masks, which most cotton masks are, work the best to protect both the wearer and other people. “Any mask is better than no mask.”
Last week, Pfizer and its partner BioNTech announced the results of a first interim analysis of their Phase 3 study of their COVId vaccine, which was found to be more than 90% effective in participants without prior infection.
On Monday, another firm, Moderna, announced that a study trial shows that its vaccine is 94.5% effective.
On that topic, Adjutant General James Hoyer answered a question about plans to roll out a vaccine in West Virginia, once one or more become available.
Hoyer said a conversation with the CDC is set for this week. A Department of Health and Human Resources staffer is leading a group working on planning vaccine distribution and administration. Twenty organizations are participants in that group.
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