Gov. Jim Justice announced that West Virginia is partnering with Walgreens and Fruth pharmacies to offer free coronavirus testing.
The governor said in a virtual press briefing that Walgreens drive-thru pharmacies at sixteen locations in Boone, Cabell, Fayette, Kanawha, Logan, Monongalia, Putnam and Raleigh counties are now offering free testing for COVID-19 as of Friday, Oct. 9.
Justice also announced that Fruth Pharmacies at twelve locations in the state will also offer free testing. Those counties include Cabell, Jackson, Kanawha, Mason, Putnam, Roane and Wood counties.
“Over the next several weeks, more locations will be added across West Virginia,” Justice said. “It’s just one way for West Virginians to get tested and stop the spread of this terrible virus, so take advantage of all this.”
Free testing at Walgreens and Fruth pharmacies are by appointment only.
Anyone from any county in West Virginia can visit these locations regardless of whether they are a resident of that county.
The testing effort is being paid for by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources. DHHR said it hopes to partner with more pharmacies in the state.
For more information on free coronavirus testing locations in West Virginia, click here.
All of West Virginia’s two and four-year public and private nonprofit higher education institutions will see support from the state to help increase surveillance testing for the coronavirus.
Surveillance testing, according to the U.S. Federal Food and Drug Administration, is used to gain information at a population level, rather than an individual level. It may be random sampling of a certain percentage of a specific population to monitor for increasing or decreasing prevalence of an outbreak of a disease.
Gov. Jim Justice, alongside the state’s higher education systems Chancellor Sarah Armstrong Tucker, announced earlier this week that colleges and universities in the state will be given resources to conduct surveillance testing.
This will allow for 10 percent of students and staff at each school to be tested every week beginning next week.
The HEPC said the state will be centrally purchasing the tests, and then distributing them to the colleges.
“That allows us to do saliva-based PCR tests,” said Tucker in a recent virtual press briefing with the governor. “The institutions are able to administer the tests themselves. We won’t have to rely on, or provide further strain on the local health department, so that they can continue to do the community testing the governor has already said is so desperately needed in our state.”
Tucker said all higher education institutions in the state continue to see less than one percent, week-to-week, of students, faculty and staff testing positive for the virus since reopening campuses.
“We want to keep it that way,” she said. “We want to make sure that our colleges aren’t contributing to the spread of COVID in our state, and this surveillance testing is a huge way for us to be able to do that.”
School superintendents in three counties with especially high numbers of COVID-19 cases are forgoing an offer from the governor to test all of their student athletes, a proposal that he said would’ve allowed teams to compete in their first respective games of the season this week.
Original guidance from the state calls on counties with higher numbers of daily COVID-19 cases than others to cancel public sporting events, holding only practices for their student athletes.
Following a protest outside the Capitol from parents on Monday, Gov. Jim Justice offered that afternoon to test all student athletes in counties affected by this guidance. Barring one positive result per team, Justice said, the state would allow them to play this weekend.
School officials in these three counties –Fayette, Logan and Kanawha – said they would not ask their athletes to participate in the testing because they were more interested in reducing in-person activities, to ensure a safer start to school next week on Sept. 8.
“I think we need to focus on our testing priorities,” state Sen. Stephen Baldwin, D-Greenbrier, told West Virginia Public Broadcasting Monday. Baldwin represents Fayette County, one of the three who were eligible but declined Justice’s testing offer. “Playing sports for a week is not a crisis. We have people dying.”
Fayette, Logan and Kanawha counties were all colored orange Saturday night, referring to a color-coded map of the state designed to document each county’s number of daily COVID-19 cases on a rolling seven to 14-day average.
Orange is the second worst color to red, which would require schools to cancel in-person classes for the week and practices for student athletes.
Justice said Monday his offer to test all student athletes in the three orange counties – which, according to the state’s color-coded map, were required to cancel games – was a “one-time opportunity.”
“We have consulted with every health expert, we’ve consulted with all kinds of people,” Justice said. “… We’re going to test all the coaching staff, all those that are involved, the bands, everybody in those three counties.”
In Fayette County, superintendent Gary Hough said coaches and principals all agreed the testing would be a lot of work for schools that were already prepared to cancel or reschedule their games later this week.
“I think they wondered how that could all be done in 24 hours,” Hough said of high school principals and coaches. “A lot of them had already rescheduled games.”
In Logan County, superintendent Patricia Lucas said schools there already canceled their games this week, due to their red status on the color-coded map of West Virginia counties last week.
“We were not at a place where we could’ve competed this Friday anyway,” Lucas said.
Kanawha County schools released a statement Monday afternoon, in which their superintendent Tom Williams said the focus would “be on making sure that we do everything in our power to get our students back to school.”
Increased Community Transmission
Kanawha County, West Virginia’s most populous, had three outbreaks in long-term care facilities as of Monday afternoon, according to the governor.
Logan County recently was in the red on the state’s color-coded map for counties earlier in August, while dealing with several coronavirus outbreaks among churches and one at the Logan Regional Medical Center.
Although many of the Logan County residents infected from those outbreaks have recovered and several residents there have died, Justice reported there were still active coronavirus cases at the local Trinity Health Care Services nursing home.
More than 140 prisoners at the Mount Olive Correctional Complex in Fayette County have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation on Monday. Local health officer Anita Stewart said Monday the county also has seen more community transmission, or cases that aren’t linked to out of state travel, following COVID-19 surges from neighboring counties.
“The counties that surround us – you know, Raleigh, Kanawha, those counties in particular – have had increasing numbers in the last three weeks,” Steward said. “So, it’s not surprising that we’re seeing an increase in our numbers here, two to three weeks after they saw a surge.”
Monongalia and Mingo counties were also in the orange zone Monday. Although both counties’ athletes are still allowed to play games this weekend because they remained in the yellow on Saturday, Justice said Monday that he hoped to offer the two communities additional testing.
Monroe County, where several residents and staff at the Springfield Nursing Home have tested positive for the coronavirus, was in the red on Monday. Schools there are not allowed to have practices or games for the week.
Although Justice said his testing offer was a “one time opportunity,” implying schools will stick to the rules accompanying the color-coded map once school starts next week, he and other health officials encouraged people to seek testing, regardless, to ensure “healthy opportunities.”
“We are highly cognizant that the time frame of delivering any tests back is a challenge for us,” said the state’s coronavirus czar, Dr. Clay Marsh, on Monday. “We have worked with a few organizations to try to make sure that these particular tests return [rapidly] … not only because that that will impact the ability of the teams to schedule to play the teams that would be eligible after testing, but also so that we can prepare the communities and the schools for the ability to get back into classrooms.”
The pressure of the fast turnaround was one of the reasons why at least Fayette County decided against the testing, according to local superintendent Hough.
According to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, the state has contracts with five laboratories for coronavirus testing. Commissioner Bill Crouch for the DHHR announced the state was partnering with two more private labs to minimize the time that West Virginians spend waiting on their results.
DHHR spokesperson Allison Adler clarified that the state has contracts pending with Quest and Ipsum laboratories.
A west Kentucky television station manager told his employees they need his permission before getting tested for coronavirus, after an employee at the station tested positive for infection by the virus. Some employees of the station’s parent company, Paxton Media Group, say that policy discourages them from getting a test. Health and legal experts say the station policy is problematic, putting employees of the station and the public at large at risk for spreading the virus.
Some employees of WPSD-TV in Paducah say their coverage promoting safety measures against the spread of COVID-19 is disconnected from how the company protects employees from the virus. The Ohio Valley ReSource spoke on background with three people associated with Paxton Media Group — which owns WPSD, the Paducah Sun newspaper, and numerous other media outlets in west Kentucky. Those people, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid reprisal, say they fear their health and safety is not a priority at the company. They cited amemo from Bill Evans, the Vice President and General Manager of WPSD, implementing a new testing protocol at WPSD that legal and health experts say is problematic.
“If you DID NOT have direct contact (within six feet, for more than 10 minutes) with the employee that tested positive, and you ARE NOT showing symptoms — there is no reason to get tested,” Evans wrote in the memo dated June 26, which was subsequentlyposted on social media. “Any further COVID-19 testing will be done with my approval only.”
Evans added that the station’s weekend morning newscast would be cancelled due to the need to isolate employees after being tested. He also stated that getting his permission for testing would let the station manage “staffing needs.”
An excerpt from the WPSD management memo instructing employees to get permission before a COVID-19 test.
PMG sources said some WPSD employees potentially exposed to the person who tested positive had already received COVID-19 tests before the June 26 memo was issued.
Evans, who is also publisher of the Paducah Sun, declined an on-the-record interview about the memo. In a July 8 statement to the ReSource, Evans acknowledged an employee tested positive and that afterwards employees who had close contact with that person were tested. The June 26 memo states some employees were tested at Baptist Health Paducah Hospital’s Urgent Care.
All employees were then required to wear masks in common areas of the workplace. Some asymptomatic employees who weren’t in close contact with the positive case also requested and received tests, he said, and the facilities offering the test required all employees tested to not return to work until getting a negative test result.
“As a result, we were required to cancel our weekend morning newscasts. I directed that any other employee that wished to be tested should clear such testing with me so that I could make staffing arrangements in anticipation of the state mandated quarantine following such testing,” Evans said in the statement. “No other employee indicated that they wished to be tested. The following week every employee who had been tested reported receiving a negative test result.”
Susan Dunlap, Executive Director of the Office of Public Affairs in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services, said in a statement state health officials only recommend — not mandate — that Kentuckians quarantine after receiving a test in all cases to prevent the spread of the virus.
Sources associated with PMG said the June 26 memo discouraged employees from getting COVID-19 tests on their own out of fear of reprisal from management. Sources also said the protocol in the memo was still in force, publicly posted in WPSD’s office as of July 7.
Leading experts in public health, employment law, and media commentary say the station memo’s demand for permission to get coronavirus testing could expose PMG to legal liability, potentially violate state COVID-19 guidance for employers, and could put the health of employees and the public at large at risk.
“Insanely Reckless”
PMG sources detailed how in the months leading up to when the positive case was discovered among station employees, they felt that measures to protect employees at WPSD and The Paducah Sun were rudimentary, or an afterthought. One source said that social distancing behind the camera in the WPSD workplace wasn’t taken seriously until after the positive case was discovered.
Two sources expressed that while alternatives were offered for doing interviews and reporting remotely, there was an expectation among management of The Paducah Sun and WPSD that reporting in public was preferred, even if some in-person reporting wasn’t necessary in light of risks due to the pandemic.
In regards to the specific June 26 memo sent to WPSD employees, one source stated the memo was viewed in a negative light by staff, and the source worried that news of the memo would hurt the station’s credibility, considering the station’s extensive coverage of the pandemic and various safety measures.
WPSD reporters covered some of thefirst meetings of McCracken County leaders as the specter of the pandemic materialized, making trips tolocal hospitals, intobusinesses, andtalking with residents out in public. WPSD also provides a link to aninformation guide on their website’s landing page on coronavirus-related resources, including how to sew face masks, a list of local food pantries, and a list of regional testing sites.
The same source also expressed dismay over what they saw as inaction by local government and health leaders on addressing the memo. The memo had been posted on social media, receivingdiscussion on Facebook as early as June 27.
”We’re in a life or death situation, and you’re telling us that we have to seek approval to get tested for this? I mean, it’s only killed over 120,000 people in the country so far,” a source said. “It’s just insanely reckless.”
This source said even though they were asymptomatic and weren’t around the positive case for an extended period of time, they hadn’t received a test in part out of fear of reprisal from management from having to potentially miss work days until receiving a test result.
“It’s kind of like we’re playing Red Rover with the coronavirus, and this isn’t a type of game you play for fun. Coronavirus is a life or death situation, and we should have been taking this way more seriously from the jump,” the same source said.
Kentucky Department for Public Health Commissioner Steven Stack said in a statement that his department has consistently encouraged everyone, employers and employees, to isolate and receive testing if sick.
“If an employer issued a memo, internal or otherwise, that discouraged employees from getting tested, they have endangered their employees, the public at large, and have violated the Healthy at Work guidance that has been published since early/mid-May,” Stack said in his statement.
Stack referenced Gov. Andy Beshear’sexecutive order from May 11, establishing “Healthy at Work” guidance for employers. The guidance states employers should have all employees experiencing COVID-19 symptoms receive a test within 36 hours, with employees trained on how to isolate certain cases, and make accommodations for employees at higher risk from the virus, among other requirements.
Stack also referencedrecent guidance from June 29 that requires employers to have a testing plan in place to prevent further spread of COVID-19 in a workplace. The guidance for a testing plan recommends employers to have a protocol in place to identify and test symptomatic employees and isolate close contacts, remaining in quarantine for 14 days to see if COVID-19 symptoms develop.
The Kentucky Labor Cabinet enforces non-compliance of the “Healthy at Work” guidance. Cabinet Chief of Staff Marjorie Arnold said in a statement that cabinet employees can serve “Orders to Cease Operations to companies for failing to follow requirements and Notices of Deficiency for companies that have had minor deficiencies identified.”
Arnold said an Order to Cease Operations mandates a company to stop operating until the company comes into compliance, while a Notice of Deficiency lets a company continue to operate while submitting evidence of actions taken to correct “identified deficiencies.” She added employers who fail to follow Healthy at Work guidance could face monetary penalties.
Legal Liability
One Louisville-basedattorney specializing in employment law and representing employees facing wrongful termination and dangerous work conditions said he believes the memo could expose Paxton Media Group to legal liability.
“This company’s memo, what they are doing gets in the way of Kentucky’s public policy that favors testing. And so they should be able to sue them over it. And also enjoin the memo from ever being applied to anybody else,” said John Friend, a director and shareholder at Bishop Friend, P.S.C. “You have a lot of companies that are losing money, and they’re panicking because they were not prepared for something like this. And when people panic, they do dumb stuff. In an era where there is not this COVID-19 going on, there is not a company in the United States of America that would send out a memo like this. Anywhere. Like, this is crazy.”
Friend said while he couldn’t immediately point to a specific executive order or state statute that would clash with the memo’s protocol, he believes “if somebody decides to come after them, I think they’re gonna have a problem.”
PMG has had to make recent cuts that the company says is associated with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Another leakedmemo dated June 25 states some furloughed employees had their positions eliminated, impacting WPSD and six PMG-owned newspapers.
Excerpt from a management memo announcing cuts due to the pandemic’s impact.
PMGowns a significant chunk of media outlets in the Jackson Purchase and Pennyrile regions of Kentucky, including newspapers covering cities including Hopkinsville, Madisonville, Mayfield, Owensboro, Paducah, Benton, Eddyville, and newspapers covering Trigg County and McLean County. PMG also owns multiple newspapers in other states including Jonesboro, Arkansas.
Despite the social mediadiscussion of the memo as early as June 27, the memo appears to have garnered no previous media coverage. Al Cross is the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky. Cross said it’s rare for media companies to cover themselves.
“In the ideal world, there would have been some independent reporting with an outside editor in Paxton Media Group publications. But, sad to say, that would be a rarity in American journalism today,” Cross said.
Cross also said he believes the reason the memo was issued was to prevent more losses from canceled newscasts, but that it was still an “inappropriate” protocol.
“If I were an employee, I would feel discouraged from getting a test, and that is not appropriate,” Cross said. “The staffing needs of the station should not stand in the way of the employees’ health.”
On Saturday, June 27, WPSD made a since-deleted post on Facebook stating they were canceling their morning newscast, a day after Evans issued his June 26 memo.
“The essential employees who work on our news and production team have made extraordinary personal sacrifices during the past few months providing dedicated & extensive coverage of COVID-19 and its continuing impact, while dealing themselves with the economic and health impacts of the pandemic,” the post stated. “These factors contributed significantly to our decision to suspend the broadcast on a one time basis in consideration of our team.”
The post did not mention that the cancellation was due to a positive COVID-19 test among employees.
DISCLOSURE NOTE: The news director at ReSource partner station WKMS is a former Paxton Media Group employee. In order to avoid any conflict of interest, the news director was not involved in editing or producing this story.
As part of the state’s continuing efforts to provide COVID-19 testing opportunities for minorities and vulnerable populations, free testing is being offered in seven counties Friday June 12 and Saturday June 13.
Identification, such as a driver’s license or proof of address, is required to be tested. Those under the age of 18 must be accompanied by a parent or legal guardian. The testing is free and available to all residents in selected counties, including individuals who are not displaying any symptoms.
While the effort is aimed at minority populations, anyone can be tested. Testing is being conducted by local county health departments in conjunction with the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources and West Virginia National Guard.
On Friday June 12 and Saturday June 13:
Greenbrier County, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Dorie Miller Park, 2300 Rosewood Avenue, Co Route 32/1, Lewisburg
Hancock County, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Weirton Event Center, 3322 East Street, Weirton
Logan County, 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Cora Volunteer Fire Department, 28 Aldridge Branch, Logan
Wood County, TBD
On Saturday, June 13:
Grant County, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. EA Hawse Health Center 64 Hospital Drive #5, Petersburg
Hampshire County, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. EA Hawse Health Center 22338 North Western Turnpike, Romney
Hardy County, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Three EA Hawse Health Center locations: 17978 WV 55, Baker; 8 Lee Street #127, Moorefield; and 106 Harold K. Michael Drive, Mathias
Speaking at a press briefing Thursday, Gov. Jim Justice said state officials are closely watching the situation in the Eastern Panhandle.
“Berkeley, Jefferson, and Morgan Counties are counties that we are watching nonstop,” Justice said. “You know, they’re probably the most exposed counties from the standpoint of all the stuff from DC to Virginia.”
State health officer Dr. Cathy Slemp said while the numbers are higher in Berkeley County, the percent positivity of cases is staying fairly consistent.
“What we’re looking at … is both the level of disease and trends, or changes in disease,” Slemp explained. “So, we’re seeing higher levels of disease, but it’s been staying kind of steady along that path.”
But despite higher levels in the Eastern Panhandle, the state is moving forward with reopening plans. On Friday, casinos and movie theaters are set to reopen statewide.
Health officer for the Berkeley-Morgan County Health Department and the Jefferson County Health Department Dr. Terrence Reidy said in an interview over Skype that for the past few weeks, Berkeley County on average, sees about 25 new cases each week — but recently that’s increased to between 40 and 50 a week.
The region has also recently increased access to coronavirus testing.
“The hope had been that people would have understood by this point what they need to do to decrease the risk of infection,” Reidy said. “And we’re seeing that that’s not happening. We’re seeing it both in the numbers of the rising cases and the activities of people getting together and not doing the social distancing or wearing masks; the simple things that do make a difference.”
He cautions entities and residents in the Eastern Panhandle to slow down as things reopen and be mindful. He said just because reopening can happen doesn’t necessarily mean it should yet, and businesses should not operate in the same way as they did prior to the virus outbreak.
He adds that residents should take all necessary precautions, such as wearing a mask in public spaces and to still consider using curbside options at restaurants, grocery stores and other businesses when possible.
The governor’s office hasn’t said whether it will slow reopening in the Eastern Panhandle region.
At least 82 people in West Virginia have died from the virus, and 2,113 have tested positive, according to state health officials Friday morning.
