Gov. Justice recently commemorated the one-year anniversary today of the arrival of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine in West Virginia.
“West Virginia led the way for the entire nation right out of the gate,” Gov. Justice said. “While other states spent weeks cutting through federal red tape, West Virginia was getting the vaccine out to our most vulnerable people.”
West Virginia was the first state in the nation to offer vaccines to residents of all long-term care facilities across the state and was also the first state in the nation to launch an online, statewide COVID-19 vaccine pre-registration system.
The Governor also touted the success of vaccination incentive campaigns like the Do it for Babydog sweepstakes, Beat 588…Bad, the Call to Arms initiative, and others.
“Fast forward to today – one year later – and we’ve administered more than 2.2 million doses of the vaccine to West Virginia residents. We’ve vaccinated 82.4% of our people 50 and older and 90.2% of our people 65 and older,” Gov. Justice said. “We’ve still got a bunch of folks out there that we need to get across the finish line, but we truly have saved a lot of lives.
“I’d like to take this time to really thank our doctors, our nurses, health departments, pharmacies, medical providers, and everyone who’s helped us get shots in arms, especially the DHHR, the National Guard, and our Joint Interagency Task Force,” Gov. Justice continued. “It has taken a real effort to coordinate all this, and these folks have done an incredible job.”
The Governor went on to once again encourage all eligible West Virginians to get their initial vaccinations or their booster shot as quickly as possible.
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