Gov. Jim Justice described “an outbreak over in the Eastern Panhandle” during a daily news conference Friday, but the information was so new that he and public health experts had to promise to provide more details later.
“All I would say about that is everyone is sitting on the edge of their seat nonstop, including me,” Justice said after it became clear many questions about the cluster could not yet be answered.
One overriding question that remained unclear is what milestone tipped the Eastern Panhandle to being considered an outbreak.
Another was how widespread the outbreak — or cluster — is believed to be.
And yet another was whether any particular factor led to more rapid spread.
During the midday press briefing, Justice and the health officials described the cluster both as a long-anticipated outcome and as a very serious development — as a news flash but also as a matter that could be elaborated on later.
“The biggest news, I think, of the day is just this, and our health officials will touch on this in a little bit: We’ve got an outbreak over in the Eastern Panhandle,” Justice said to lead off Friday’s briefing.
“We’ll get into that in just a few minutes, but the reality is just real simple — and that is, we’ve anticipated this. Anything that is really close to a major city, like the Eastern Panhandle is right on the back door of Washington, D.C., we’ve been on it. We’ve been concerned about it.”
The West Virginia National Guard said it is prepared to provide surge support, and Justice alluded to the possibility of tightening down what businesses are considered essential.
“If it comes to the point that we need to send the National Guard in there to try in every way to get a better handle on it, we may have to try to put more strenuous guidelines as far as essential and nonessential — but we need to at least contain this there,” Justice said.
Adjutant General James Hoyer referenced increased National Guard presence in Monongalia and Kanawha counties — which both have significant numbers of positive cases — and said more support could be provided for Eastern Panhandle healthcare workers, including personal protective equipment and rapid testing for the workers themselves.
The governor and health leaders made reference to a batch of testing recently made available that indicated community spread in Berkeley and Jefferson counties.
Information posted at midday by the state Department of Health and Human Resources showed 37 confirmed coronavirus cases in Berkeley County and 12 in Jefferson.
But Justice and the state’s coronavirus czar, Clay Marsh, described 60 positive tests — some that were sent for processing a week ago by commercial labs and others run in the last 24 hours by labs at West Virginia University.
“So we know this has been exchanged in this community over a period of time,” Marsh said.
Questions posed to the Berkeley County Health Department didn’t provide immediate clarity.
“Thank you for your inquiry but right now it is still being investigated for the extent of an existing cluster,” wrote health department administrator Bill Kearns in an email.
State Health Officer Cathy Slemp said the cases are not associated with any one town or facility.
“We don’t think it is one particular outbreak in terms of one facility or one entity,” Slemp said. “It was more community transmission.”
Justice, later in the press conference, indicated he is among those who would like to know as much as possible about the geography of the spread.
“I think it would be really helpful to those people in those counties if we could say ‘We had more cases, we had a lot of cases, you know, in Martinsburg or whatever may be,” he said, directing the comment at state health officials.
“But we’ve got cases all over the county — is that what we’re saying?”
Slemp agreed with that assessment, saying that data from testing shows “It is transmission within the community across a broad geographic area.”
But Justice twice mentioned Hobby Lobby, a national craft store, without elaborating on specifics.
Hobby Lobby generated controversy by keeping open stores across the country as social distancing guidelines were meant to keep people home. But the chain announced closure of all those stores on Friday.
“I think we had a Hobby Lobby deal and you know that was a potential problem there and just different things,” he said near the beginning of the press conference.
He later said, “From what I’ve been fed so far I was told some information about the Hobby Lobby, but y’all can elaborate please.”
Slemp again said the spread is not specific to any particular facility.
The Hobby Lobby store in Martinsburg was already listed as closed on Friday and no one answered calls there.
State Police Capt. Shallon Oglesby, in an email to MetroNews, described a trooper visiting and Hobby Lobby “and had a conversation with the management. After the conversation, the management agreed to close the store.”
Marsh promised to provide more information about the spread in the Eastern Panhandle as it becomes available.
He said the information about spread in the Eastern Panhandle was revealed to state leaders only about half an hour before today’s midday press briefing was scheduled to begin.
“This is really hot off the press,” he said. “We had a conversation at 11:30 versus the 12 p.m. briefing so as we find out more information or more specificity, as many people are interested, we would be happy to share that with people,” he said.
“It really is just an issue that we just found out about.”
He said the finding puts West Virginia in company with other concerned states.
“Right now,” he said, “this is the first part of us being in a position that much of the rest of the country has experienced.”