A View from Inside West Virginia’s COVID-19 Response

This article was contributed by Clay Marsh, MD
West Virginia Coronavirus Czar
Vice President and Executive Dean
West Virginia University Health Sciences

There has been a great deal of media coverage about how West Virginia has responded so effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of the pandemic, Governor Jim Justice established the priorities of:

• Protecting the most vulnerable.
• Reducing deaths.
• Reducing hospitalizations.
• Maintaining critical services and acute care.

We knew that 50% of our deaths from COVID-19 were from our nursing home population. In addition, our average age of death from COVID-19 in West Virginia is 77. We created a priority list that focused on hospital workers, nursing home and assisted living residents and staff, first responders at all ages, critical workers over aged 50 and our most vulnerable citizens over aged 65 as our priorities for vaccination.

The culture in the state strongly contributed to our success. Our willingness to sacrifice for the greater good. Our willingness to just be West Virginians together, and as Gov. Jim Justice says, “run to the fire.”

West Virginia formed a Joint Interagency Task Force (JIATF) led by National Guard logistics experts to create a “team of teams.” There is a spirit of innovation and bottoms-up solutions that are welcomed. Gov. Justice calls this “pulling the rope in the same direction.”

West Virginia was the only state in the country not to initially participate in the Federal Pharmacy program to partner with large chains such as CVS and Walgreens. Instead, we engaged the state’s more than 200 independent pharmacies, many privately owned with pre-existing relationships with rural nursing homes to reach our rural communities and scattered long-term care facilities with limited or no access to the large, national pharmacy chains. We were the first state to offer vaccinations to all residents and staff in all 214 nursing homes and assisted living centers, and we recently completed second doses at all of those locations.

It has been extremely important to communicate clearly. Our governor has done a great job of keeping the state together with very frequent press briefings. We have formed a team that is ready to take questions from the media and stress our message for the state.

West Virginia became the first state to partner and implement an online portal – Everbridge – that allows residents to pre-register to receive the vaccine. This interactive system facilitates ongoing communication with residents in this queue to let them know where they stand in line, contact them when they are eligible for vaccination and allow messaging to be customized and directed at each registered citizen.

Our goal is to get a vaccine to every West Virginia resident as soon as we are able to. In the meantime, it’s so important that we all continue to wear a mask that covers your mouth and nose, stay physically distanced from those outside of your households and keep your hands and environment clean. Stay safe West Virginia, and let’s strive for community immunity.