Gov. Jim Justice says West Virginia must take “baby steps” to restart its economy while being careful to protect as many citizens as possible from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
Justice and other state leaders on Monday said a big component of that effort will be increased capacity to test West Virginians for the virus.
And they said the first demonstration of that capacity will be the testing of all of West Virginia’s nursing home residents and staff.
“We’re just going to keep testing and testing like crazy,” Justice said during a Monday afternoon news briefing.
Nursing home order greatly expands W.Va. testing effort
West Virginia had conducted 22,155 tests for coronavirus through early Monday, according to the state Department of Health and Human Resources.
On Friday, Justice ordered the testing of all nursing home residents and staff in the state.
That was prompted by outbreaks at nursing homes in Monongalia, Kanawha, Wayne and Jackson counties, along with Justice’s assessment that reporting from nursing homes had not been consistent. A Jackson County nursing home is associated with four deaths of residents.
That means 28,000 residents or staff must be tested at about 130 nursing homes.
“To test 28,000 when for forty days all you’ve tested is 22,000 — how long’s it going to take? How long’s it going to take?” Justice asked rhetorically.
“Well, I’ve been assured over and over and over by our National Guard and the DHHR that we can accomplish this in a week. Well, I’ll tell you, if we can accomplish that in a week it will be an incredible feat.”
That effort is a precursor, he said, to West Virginia testing more of its citizens.
“The fact that we are the first state to test every resident and every employee of every nursing home in the state is really such a pro-active move from what other states are doing,” said Bill Crouch, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Resources.
“So when you look at testing per population, we are going to continue to move in that direction — the direction of testing more people.”
Justice and others promise significant testing expansion
Widespread testing to determine where and how the virus is spreading is viewed as a necessity as states ease social distancing guidelines.
Such testing would be far more vigorous than what states like West Virginia have been able to do so far.
Harvard researchers recommend an increase of three times the number of coronavirus tests currently conducted in the United States, according to a recent New York Times article.
That amounts to about 152 tests per 100,000 people each day. The article showed West Virginia at about 41 tests per 100,000 as of late last week.
Justice said today that he thinks even the goal number is too low.
“Testing 152 per 100,000 isn’t good enough. That isn’t good enough for West Virginia,” Justice said.
“At some point in time, we’re going to be able to test every person in the state of West Virginia.”
West Virginia’s testing capacity is ready to take a leap, Justice and other state health officials said.
Coronavirus response coordinator Clay Marsh described the the need to be able to test asymptomatic people, especially in vulnerable populations.
“We need to have expanded testing capability,” said Marsh, who described the recent acquisition of 30,000 additional swabs and 15,000 more testing kits for state labs to use.
Furthermore, Marsh and others said, the state is embarking on greater partnership with LabCorp, one of the national commercial providers of coronavirus testing.
“With this support we believe that we really don’t have limits on the capacity that we would need to test people we believe should be tested,” Marsh said.
Crouch said six LabCorp facilities started additional testing Friday with eight more going online today. More are likely to come on board, he said.
“They are now caught up and can provide us one or two-day turnaround,” Crouch said, adding that LabCorp has the capability of running 65,000 tests a day.
That’s on top of almost 5,000 tests a day — or 31,900 a week — that officials say can now be run through the state lab.
Justice promises cautious steps toward opening back up
Justice said that increased capacity gives him additional confidence that West Virginia can start the first steps in easing restarting the state’s economy.
He cautioned, though, that must be done carefully.
“We’ll take baby steps in starting back. And those baby steps will be done on the advice of our experts,” Justice said.
The first of those steps, outlined Monday by the governor, is resuming the ability of medical providers to perform elective surgeries. Justice said they can begin to apply for that resumption a week from today.
MORE Justice says elective surgeries may be among first activities to resume
Guidelines for easing social distancing issued by the White House last week say states should meet particular conditions.
States should have a downward trajectory of cases over a 14-day period.
Hospitals should have adequate capacity.
And robust testing should be in place.
Opening up doesn’t mean throwing the doors wide open.
Phase One, according to the federal guidelines, means restaurants, movie theaters, sporting venues, places of worship and gyms could reopen if they observe strict social distancing. Elective surgeries could resume when appropriate on an outpatient basis.
Schools would need to continue to be closed, and visits to long-term care facilities and hospitals would still not be allowed. Bars would still be closed. People in high-risk categories should remain home.
“We’re going to ease ourselves back into restart. We’re not going to run back into restart.”
But Justice said the time has come for West Virginia to lay a path toward more economic activity.
“There’s surely a balancing act that has to be done between restarting the engine or trying to stay home, do everything we can to protect in every way,” he said.
“We have got to start the engines back. We have got to start back. And I will assure you that we will start back as safely as we possibly can.”
Realistically, he said, that must happen before a vaccine is available for covid-19.
“We’re going to have to learn, at least in the near term, we’re going to have to learn how to live with this disease. Because it’s not going to go away tomorrow,” Justice said.
“We can’t shut the engine down for six months, because that could put us in a worse situation than we are today.”