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Justice: W.Va.’s COVID-19 state of emergency to end Jan. 1

Photo Courtesy/WV Governor’s Office  Gov. Jim Justice gives a briefing on March 16, 2020, the same day he issued a state of emergency for COVID-19. 

CHARLESTON — West Virginia’s state of emergency for COVID-19 will end nearly three years since Gov. Jim Justice first issued the order, but the proclamation ending the state of emergency was issued quietly nearly 20 days ago taking many by surprise. 

According to a proclamation issued Nov. 12, the COVID-19 state of emergency will end Sunday, Jan. 1, 2023. The future date will give the state time to wind down any outstanding executive orders connected to the COVID state of emergency and reinstate paused rules and regulations. 

“Whereas, certain challenges resulting from the pandemic surely remain, but the time for emergency response has ended and the time for all parties to come together, to pull the rope together, and to overcome these remaining challenges together under non-emergency processes is now upon us,” Justice wrote in the Nov. 12 executive order ending the COVID state of emergency. 

Speaking Wednesday during a virtual briefing with reporters streamed from his office inside the State Capitol Building, Justice said the state of emergency is no longer needed to address the COVID-19 pandemic going forward. 

“The truth is the state of emergency doesn’t affect a whole lot anymore,” Justice said. “There was a time when we used the state of emergency, and we used it in a way that was prudent, did we not? We absolutely did and pushed the right buttons at the right time. Now it’s no longer needed.” 

Justice first issued the COVID state of emergency on March 16, 2020, one day before the state reported its first positive coronavirus case — two year, nine months and 15 days ago. According to the National Academy for State Health Policy, 11 states including West Virginia still have COVID states of emergency. 

But the proclamation rescinding the COVID state of emergency went unnoticed until Tuesday night after House Majority Leader Amy Summers, R-Taylor, tweeted out the “state of emergency has finally ended,” and Jared Hunt, communications director for State Treasurer Riley Moore and a former reporter, discovered and posted the link to the proclamation on Twitter. 

When asked if he would have said anything about the proclamation before it was discovered Tuesday night, Justice said no, stating that he didn’t want to create a political “hoopla.” 

“I didn’t want this to be a soapbox political deal. It’s too important,” Justice said. “When are we going to quit trying to make something into some hoopla? As far as being perfectly honest and saying would I have announced this today? Probably not.” 

Since the beginning of the COVID state of emergency, Justice issued dozens of executive orders dealing with pandemic response, closing and re-opening non-essential businesses, ordering the usage of face masks in indoor public places, determining re-opening guidelines and metrics for schools, and more. The state of emergency has allowed Justice to mobilize the West Virginia National Guard to assist with delivery of personal protective equipment and distributing vaccines. 

Justice has also used the COVID state of emergency to pause rules governing purchasing and bidding, as well as the ability to spend millions of federal COVID-19 relief dollars from the Coronavirus Aid Relief, and Economic Security (C.A.R.E.S.) Act, the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).  

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, West Virginia has received more than $16 billion through these three programs alone. The state received $1.25 billion from the C.A.R.E.S. Act in 2020 and $1.35 billion from ARPA in 2021 in the form of direct funding.  

The $1.25 billion in C.A.R.E.S. Act funding had to be used for COVID-19 expenses by the state, county, and city governments. The $1.35 billion in ARPA funds can be used for both COVID-19 expenses and specific infrastructure projects. Cities and counties received a total $677 million in direct ARPA funds. According to the State Auditor’s Office, the C.A.R.E.S. Act cash balance at the end of September was zero, with more than $23 million transferred to the Governor’s Office Gifts, Grants, and Donations Fund. 

The West Virginia Legislature passed a bill in 2021 requiring the governor to get approval from lawmakers for any expenditures of federal emergency relief funding exceeding $150 million. But an attempt to pass a bill that would have placed limits on the governor’s state of emergency powers failed when the state Senate and House of Delegates could not agree on a compromise. The bill would have required legislative approval to extend states of emergencies past 60 days. 

Lawmakers have hinted that they would take another crack at ending the COVID state of emergency in January when the new legislative session begins. State Code allows the Legislature to terminate a governor’s state of emergency by adopting a concurrent resolution. There is bad blood between members of the Republican legislative majority and Justice after the governor worked to see Amendment 2, which would have given lawmakers the authority to eliminate tangible personal property taxes – fail on the November ballot. 

“As far as short-hopping the Legislature doing something on their own, that’s ridiculous,” Justice said. 

According to the state Department of Health and Human Resources, 7,611 West Virginians have died from COVID-19 since the state’s first reported death at the end of March 2020.  

While the state enjoyed national attention at the end of 2020 for getting older residents and those in assisted living facilities vaccinated quickly, the rate of vaccinations has slowed since then. Nearly 60% of state residents age 5 and older have been fully vaccinated with a COVID-19 vaccine. Of that number, more than 60% of those vaccinated have receive booster doses. According to the New York Time, West Virginia ranks 36th out of 50 states for the number of residents fully vaccinated. 

The seven-day average of active cases is 688, a nearly 28% drop from seven-day average of 955 active cases the first seven days of November. West Virginia has experienced three major waves of COVID-19: the first wave of the original strain at the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, the Delta variant wave in the fall of 2021, and the Omicron variant wave in the winter of 2022.  

Since then, sub-variants of Omicron have continued to spread, becoming more infectious with each new sub-variant. But the virus has not become deadlier, and the vaccines and boosters have helped protect people against the worst of COVID-19’s symptoms, taking the strain off of healthcare systems and hospitals. During the peak of the first Omicron spike, 1,097 people were hospitalized in West Virginia hospitals at the beginning of February. The number as of Wednesday was only 162 hospitalized. 

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