MORGANTOWN — Gov. Jim Justice is kicking off Do It For Babydog Round 3, aimed at kids ages 5-18, he said Monday.
“This is our campaign to try to incentive the youngest of the youngest … to get vaccinated,” he said.
Registration begins Tuesday, Nov. 9, he said, with the first deadline to be Nov. 14.
Drawings will be conducted the weeks of Nov. 15 and 29, and Dec. 6 and 13.
Each week, 25 kids will receive a $10,000 educational savings fund. There will be 100 lifetime hunting and fishing licenses awarded each week.
Also, each week, a grand prize winner will receive a $50,000 educational savings fund, and that person’s school will receive a $50,000 check and, he said, some kind of party with himself and Babydog.
The final week will conclude, he said, with a $100,000 educational savings fund winner, and a $100,000 check for that student’s school, along with a party featuring Santa and Babydog dressed as a reindeer.
At each party, vaccines will be offered to students, with parental permission, Justice said.
The campaign will cost about $2 million to $3 million, he said, covered by federal COVID funds.
While urging everyone to get vaccinated, or get a booster, Justice also celebrated that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, has put a stay on President Biden’s OSHA vaccine mandate for businesses employing 100 or more people.
News reports quote the court: “Because the petitions give cause to believe there are grave statutory and constitutional issues with the Mandate, the Mandate is hereby stayed pending further action by this court.”
Last week, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined with six other states to file with the 6th Circuit for a similar stay.
Justice commented, “You know where I’ve stood rock-solid behind that. I don’t believe that we ought to be terminating people because they have some religious or medical condition in regard to their employment.”
COVID-19 Czar Clay Marsh renewed his plea for vaccinated folks to get boosters. He said the state is seeing an uptick in its R-value, a measure of the rate of spread.
“That is a bit concerning,” he said. And places where cold weather is driving people inside are seeing case numbers creeping back up. For those age 40 and up, either six months past their Pfizer or Moderna shot, or two months past their Johnson & Johnson, “Your immune protection is not close to what it needs to be.”
Nearly 1.94 million vaccine doses have been administered in the state, he said, but only 47,917 booster doses. That’s not enough. “We really implore everyone … to please get a booster.”
To turn the pandemic into something endemic — like the seasonal cold or flu — we need 85% to 90% of the population vaccinated. Neither West Virginia nor the nation as a whole is anywhere close to that.
TWEET David Beard @dbeardtdp EMAIL dbeard@dominionpost.com
