| With no concrete national oversight of the COVID-19 epidemic, state's have been left to manage their own problems.
Stats show that huge numbers of deaths have occurred in nursing homes nationwide, including West Virginia.
The availability of wide-spread testing in the US has been cited as a missing piece in fighting the epidemic.
Hours after Gov. Jim Justice mandated all nursing home residents and staffs be either tested or retested for COVID-19, a survey to begin the massive task was sent to nursing homes around the state.
Thatâs according to a news release from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources that said questionnaires were developed in partnership with the West Virginia Health Care Association to see how to âassist with the coordination of resources across the state.â
The executive order signed Friday by the governor says the state DHHR will set up the framework for how the testing will be done. It will be carried out with the help of the West Virginia National Guard and county health departments.
âThe partnership that DHHR has with the West Virginia National Guard is a good example of working together during a crisis with the ultimate goal of safety,â said Bill Couch, cabinet secretary of DHHR.
The governor says he wants the testing done as soon as possible.
The move comes after comments from the governor at a news conference Thursday that he was not pleased with the testing process at a nursing facility in Jackson County.
"We're going to go back and we're going to test everybody. Every single person in every nursing home every resident as well as all the staff, Justice said during a news conference Friday morning, âand then we're going to log all this and we're going to get it done immediately and we're going to log all this information in so that we can better serve our most elderly and the people that have given us wisdom in many ways for decades and decades and we've got to do better to do that entire process than what has been done thus far."
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