DAYCARE,
ASSISTED LIVING, RESIDENTIAL CARE TESTING
On Wednesday, Gov. Justice announced that he has issued an Executive
Order, directing the West Virginia Department of
Health and Human Resources and the West Virginia National Guard to test
all daycare employees, as well as all residents and staff members at
assisted living facilities and residential care communities throughout
the state for COVID-19.
The Governor has directed that this effort begin immediately to provide
more aggressive support to these communities.
“With our daycares, we’ve had several different staffs, as they’re trying
to get back up and running, to voluntarily test themselves,” Gov. Justice
said. “We’ve had four positives on staff that have come in from Kanawha
County. And the thing is that none of these people had any symptoms.
“It is our hope, in every way, we can have all of our daycares up and
open. We need them to take care of our children as our workers go back to
work. But we absolutely cannot risk anything to our children or anything
our children maybe could take back to their families.”
The Governor also stressed the importance of keeping the vulnerable
populations at West Virginia’s assisted living facilities and residential
care communities as safe as possible.
“We knew, as soon as we finished testing our nursing homes, we would go
to mandatory testing of our assisted living facilities and our
residential care communities,” Gov. Justice said. “We absolutely need to
do everything in our power to keep our most vulnerable populations as
safe as possible.
Last month, at the direction of Gov. Justice, West Virginia
became the first state in the nation to require COVID-19 testing
for all nursing home residents and staff statewide. In the time since, other states have
begun to follow suit. |