CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The past year in the coronavirus pandemic has been a year of constant evolution for health department across West Virginia.
“In the beginning, it was monitoring, then we were doing surveillance and then testing and then we moved to vaccination,” said Howard Gamble, administrator for the Wheeling-Ohio County Health Department.
“I think every time we moved to a different phase we looked back and said, ‘How has this gone? How did we make improvements? How can we make improvements?'”
Tuesday marked one year since Governor Jim Justice declared a State of Emergency for all 55 West Virginia counties because of the pandemic.
“Declaring a State of Emergency will open up every resource we’ve got as a state that we can use to fight the spread of this disease,” Gov. Justice said then.
At that time, no positive COVID-19 cases had been confirmed in West Virginia.
The Mountain State was the last to reach that milestone nationally.
It was a year ago Monday when Charleston Mayor Amy Shuler Goodwin declared a State of Emergency in Charleston because of the pandemic.
That was when the Unified Health Command was formed to bring together the City of Charleston, Kanawha County, the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, the Kanawha County Emergency Ambulance Authority, Health Right and other agencies.
Those involved in the coordinated effort have provided COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and other support.
“It’s teamwork,” Dr. Sherri Young, health officer and executive director of the Kanawha-Charleston Health Department, said of what had gotten Kanawha County to the pandemic anniversary.
“Assembling the team together and putting together everything that we needed in a coordinated response has been key to this. It’s not one person, one agency, it is absolutely all hands on deck.”
She called the work of thousands of people in the pandemic response “unprecedented.”
More work was ahead with larger numbers of vaccine doses being distributed to Kanawha County each week.
“I think that that will continue. We’ll see bigger allotments,” said Dr. Young during an appearance on Monday’s “580-LIVE” which aired on 580-WCHS, a MetroNews affiliate in Charleston.
Large-scale vaccination clinics continue to be held at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center. Dr. Young said efforts were also ramping up to get to homebound people using the single-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine.
In Ohio County, appointments were being scheduled nearly daily at the Community Vaccination Center located at a former store at The Highlands.
This week, Gamble said they remained focused on people over the age of 50.
“The appointment system works really well but, at some point, we know we’re just going to have to have a vaccine clinic and individuals show up just to get their vaccine,” he said.
“Right now, we have to have appointments to match the number of doses we have in our coolers.”
Gamble was expecting the community clinics to continue into the summer.
On Monday, Gov. Justice expanded vaccination eligibility to include essential workers of all ages and people with health conditions like asthma, heart disease and high blood pressure.