Joe Peal, retired colonel and chief of joint staff for the West Virginia National Guard, leads the effort to organize the state’s vaccine rollout.
Last week, as vaccines rolled out to some of the state’s most vulnerable residents, he could breathe a brief sigh of relief. But a lot of challenging work remains.
“This is the week we started saving lives. From March to this point we’ve been fighting and trying to stay afloat,” Peal said.
Distributing the vaccine across segments of West Virginia society is spinning-plates duty that only gets more complicated over the coming weeks. The state will start to broaden its effort from front-line healthcare workers and nursing homes out to other people.
Because the vaccine will be in limited supply at first, Peal and a joint agency task force have focused on how to get organized. No one wants a willy-nilly, inefficient system that results in vaccines sitting around. But there are bound to be questions about which groups are in which order.
So the task force has started involving associations playing roles in West Virginia society — like the Retailers Association that represents shops and the Manufacturers Association that represents plants — to map out some of the next steps of distribution.
“It’s getting to those associations who know the public the best. They tell us where to send the vaccines to a pharmacy to a local health department. They break that out where their workforce resides,” Peal said.
State government has rolled out a multi-phased schedule of segments of West Virginia society to be vaccinated. The first efforts are front-line health workers and long-term care residents and staff, with an aim to complete those within three weeks.
After that, the effort branches out, with guiding principles of saving lives, maintaining the functions of communities and protecting healthcare systems. Additional emphasis will be on those over ages 60 and then over age 50.
Peal said 97 percent of West Virginia’s deaths have been people over age 50.
State leaders have mapped out groups and descriptions to fit categories, but Peal and others say the phases don’t adhere to a strict schedule. Because the vaccine needs to be rolled out and not delayed or wasted, there will be overlap of the rollout in those categories.
“This is not a linear plan,” Peal said. “You have to drop down into other phases, and hospitals know this best. When they’re vaccinating their acute care, their most critical ICU emergency units, they purposely spread that out because that’s also protecting their systems in case someone should get ill from a vaccine
“So by doing so we’re able to reach other critical sectors of the community – first responders, fire, police, ambulance workers. We’re able to reach down and start the vaccine process on those other areas too.”
The joint agency task force that Peal leads spent three weeks focused on planning for the rollout to front-line health workers and nursing homes. Planners included the National Guard, DHHR, local health departments, West Virginia Emergency Management, the hospital association, the health care association that represents long-term care facilities, West Virginia University, the state board of pharmacy and FEMA.
Now the task force is expanding to include associations representing retailers, manufacturers, grocers and educational representatives covering both secondary schools and colleges. Utilities are also being brought on board.
Those groups provide guidance on how many of their members’ workers need to be vaccinated, particularly those ages 50 and above.
“If the most vulnerable are over 50 years old, they break that out for us,” Peal said. “As a joint agency task force, we don’t know those numbers but they do.”
Peal said “associations” in Phase 1D is not specifically the leaders of those groups, who may be notable and well-connected. Instead, it’s an effort to identify their vulnerable workers.
“That discussion has never happened about ‘Hey, we’re just taking care of leadership of associations.” We’re taking care of rank and file membership of West Virginians,” Peal said.
The West Virginia Manufacturers Association acknowledged its participation to focus on older and high-risk employees.
“We are asking our companies to assess the number of vaccinations needed and provide any regional distribution dynamics so we can coordinate communication and information between WVMA members and the task force,” said Rebecca McPhail, president of the manufacturers association.
“As you can imagine, this is a challenging situation to manage, and a significant portion of West Virginia’s manufacturing workforce is over age 50 or high-risk, so the WVMA is working hard to gather and share accurate and timely information with the task force and our members.”
Another category in Phase 1D is “continuity of government,” which is a catch-all term meant to assure continued government services at both the state and local level.
Some high-level government figures, such as Gov. Jim Justice, have very publicly received the vaccine. But Peal said the category is meant to cover offices at the local level too, to assure public access to services. Throughout the pandemic, local government offices have had to announce closures when workers have become ill.
“Continuity of government is to ensure the function of government is carried out. That’s just not at the state level,” Peal said.
“What do West Virginians really need, and we’ll use the Department of Motor Vehicles as an example. They’re critical to us with their licenses and titles. It’s Workforce West Virginia. We break out the DHHR sections providing so many benefits to West Virginians. That’s only the state level.”
He continued, “As important as we look towards January and our Legislature comes back, it’s protecting our legislative branch. It’s protecting our court systems, it’s protecting our county and local levels: 911 centers, emergency managers, public service districts. It’s those functions of government that we have to protect.”
The general public is in Phase 2 of the rollout, with those over age 60 going first, those over age 50 next and finally everybody else.
Peal, 54, had not gotten his own vaccination late last week because he isn’t in a category that was eligible right away. But he said he believes in the effectiveness and safety of the vaccine. Over the next few months, another top priority will be conveying that message.
“Through transparency and through messaging is the only way we feel we’re going to gain the public trust,” he said.