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West Virginia's governor hopes to be given the go-ahead to administer a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose for its most vulnerable populations.
Jim Justice held a news conference on Thursday announcing that he will ask the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for permission to begin administrating a fourth dose to essential workers and residents age 50 and older.
"We've got to do something. Either we sit back and just let our people die and we sit back and let our hospitals be overrun, or we try," Justice said. "If the CDC comes back and says no we can't do this now, and then there's enough governors that go together, we'll sure go with them. And then we may get across the finish line that way."
The plea comes as West Virginia has the 11th-lowest vaccination rate in the country. The Mayo Clinic reported that 62.2 percent of West Virginia's population has at least one vaccine dose, with 55.3 percent fully vaccinated.
"We have not seen the brunt of what Omicron will do," said Dr. Clay Marsh, the state's coronavirus expert. "The potency of those vaccines are wearing off. We can't afford to have our most vulnerable get sick from COVID-19.
"This is a critical time for us. We hope we can get a rapid decision."
Justice's request comes as West Virginia set a pandemic record for the number of daily positive coronavirus cases.
The 3,345 confirmed cases reported Thursday were 29 percent higher than the previous mark of 2,585 cases set last Friday. Daily positive records have been broken four times in the past week, including on three consecutive days last week, according to the Department of Health and Human Resources' virus dashboard.
The number of people hospitalized from the virus is creeping up, too. There were 758 COVID-19 hospitalizations on Wednesday, up from 557 on Christmas, health officials said. The record is 1,012 set on September 24.
The concern about hospitalizations is facility staffing numbers, not available beds, said James Hoyer, who leads the state's coronavirus task force. About 1,700 nurses declined to renew their state licenses in 2020.
Justice has said 68 percent of those who left the field cited being "just plain tired" and "pushed to the very limit" from the strains of the pandemic.
The state has adjusted the number of active cases based on CDC guidelines that now reflect an active status length of five days instead of 10 days. On Wednesday, the active case total was nearly 12,000, revised downward from nearly 18,900 on Tuesday.
Nearly 5,400 people have died in West Virginia since the pandemic started in March of 2020.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
