On June 2, Gov. Jim Justice announced that West Virginia would significantly scale back COVID-19 community testing programs. This led to concerns both in the general public and in the medical community that the next wave of COVID-19 cases would catch the state by surprise. But even with the rise of the highly infectious BA.5 variant, that hasn’t been the case.The start of the COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020 was a hectic time.“It was just baptism by fire,” said Regional Epidemiologist for Northeast West Virginia Dr. Lucas Moore.“And at that point there, we didn’t have the vaccines and it was really scary,” he said. “It was all hands on deck. It didn’t matter what your role was at the health department. We had a job to do.”Moore is based out of the Monongalia County Health Department offices in Morgantown. He said that at its peak, the county’s program would test 1,000 people on a single day.“Lot of people came in and they wanted to know, ‘I’m going to be around family,’ or just for …
State Still Tracking COVID-19, Despite Reduced Testing – West Virginia Public Broadcasting
