by Charles Young, SENIOR STAFF WRITER
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WV News) — West Virginia soon will roll out a slate of new initiatives aimed at convincing additional residents to get vaccinated against COVID-19, Gov. Jim Justice said Monday.
The initiatives are the latest steps in Justice’s “Beat 588 … Bad” campaign, which refers to the estimated 588,000 West Virginians who have reportedly expressed some level of vaccine hesitancy.
“We’re going to immediately begin taking the vaccine clinics to the unvaccinated by using fixed sites and mobile sites,” Justice said. “We will set up locations and times where there is a lot of high traffic, like fairs and festivals or church parking lots, sporting events, state, national and county parks, the bars, restaurants, shopping centers and malls, community and civic groups and the business organizations such as the Main Street programs.”
The state also plans to offer vaccines by partnering with organizations like Meals on Wheels, Justice said.
“We also will engage with the hospitals … the health-care facilities to vaccinate patients on discharge,” he said. “Move messaging through primary care providers, open up vaccine availability to doctor’s offices and practices, encourage physicians and other medical professionals to engage with their local community clubs and organizations to push vaccine messaging.”
Other initiatives include partnering with local EMS agencies and developing a new vaccine communications strategy, Justice said.
“It may even come down to this: We’re going door-to-door,” he said. “If we have to go door-to-door, we’ll go door-to-door on community-based outreach as well.”
The state also will encourage local businesses to offer discounts to anyone who has been vaccinated, Justice said.
“If they would, we’ll absolutely get that out,” he said.
Justice previously announced a program that would have offered a $100 savings bond to any West Virginia resident ages 16 to 35 who receives a COVID-19 vaccine, but on Monday the governor conceded the program may not happen as he had originally hoped.
“I want to do the savings bonds,” Justice said before going on to describe the difficulty state officials have had trying to set up the program. “We’ve been with (U.S.) Treasury Department over and over and over trying to figure a way we can do all this. I wanted to have some level of patriotic flavor to it.”
Officials are now considering alternative incentives that could be offered, Justice said.
“If it comes down to a card that you swipe and the card itself is something you could keep that has a real patriotic type flavor to it, great,” he said. “If we do that and maybe we can add with it a silver dollar. I am wanting someway to have something that our kids can keep.”
The details of the program have yet to be finalized, Justice said.
“My people haven’t figured that out exactly yet and everything,” he said.
Also on Monday:
— James Hoyer, who leads the state’s vaccine distribution efforts, said the state has not yet gotten a response from the federal government regarding its request for vials of COVID-19 vaccines containing fewer doses.
“We have not at this point received anything back from CDC or FDA that would allow for that reduction of numbers in vials, but we continue to work it and also continue to press it with the support of our congressional delegation,” Hoyer said.
When he announced the state’s request April 23, Justice explained reducing the number of doses in each vial will help prevent doses from going to waste.
“If we have the smaller vials, we’ll be able to do a more efficient job in minimizing waste,” he said. “You’ll never be able to eliminate waste, but to minimize waste in every way, we’ll do a more efficient job at our hospitals and we’ll be able to get to our smaller communities.”
There have been circumstances where health care providers have been unable to use all six doses, Hoyer said.
“For example, pediatricians may have one or two patients come into the office who need the vaccine and want the vaccine, but when you open what is now a six-dose vial of Pfizer, you have six hours to use that total number of doses,” he said.
— State Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch said employees of nursing homes and longterm care facilities who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will no longer have to undergo COVID-19 testing twice a week.
“However, unvaccinated staff must continue to be tested at least twice a week,” he said.