Washington – As states work to accelerate the pace of administration of the COVID-19 vaccines and improve the rocky distribution of vaccines, West Virginia Governor Jim Justice praised his state for the successful distribution of the vaccine, calling it a “rough diamond “.
“At the moment, we are 98.1%, with respect to vaccines in people’s arms or names linked to them, you know, that will be placed in people’s arms immediately,” Justice, a Republican, told “Face the Nation “in an interview on Sunday. “We are saving all kinds of lives. We are putting our children back in school. West Virginia has been the rough diamond that many people have lost.”
Since the coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna were shipped to states in December, West Virginia has emerged as a leader in vaccine distribution. According to data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 205,000 doses of injections have been distributed and more than 134,000 doses have been administered in the state.
Justice said West Virginia’s success is due to the fact that “we are practical-minded people with many very smart people here to do this”.
“Many governors sat on their hands trying to create a system or a formula for what they were going to do. We don’t sit on our hands. I mean, we act, ”he said. “We brought our local pharmacies. We brought our local health departments. We brought our National Guard and we started putting injections in people’s arms, because this thing is all about age, age, age.”
Unlike other states, West Virginia refused to participate in a federal program whereby CVS and Walgreens administered vaccines to residents and employees of long-term care facilities and instead resorted to local pharmacies to deliver the injections. So he became the first state in the country to finish offering vaccines to all facilities in the nursing home, before the end of 2020.
The court said it decided to reject the federal partnership program because “there are so many people who depend on their local health departments, their local pharmacies”.
“If what we are going to do is create a bureaucracy with federal government guidelines and everything, when we know that this is about age, age and age, we have to get an injection in people’s arms, and every day we give an injection in the arm we’re saving a life, ”he said.
Across the country, 31.1 million doses of coronavirus vaccine were distributed and 12.2 million doses administered. More than 10.5 million people received at least one dose of the injections, according to the CDC.