Editorial Roundup: West Virginia

Recent editorials from West Virginia newspapers:

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Aug. 11

The Herald-Dispatch on an HIV cluster in West Virginia:

Many things that had been community concerns fell out of the spotlight back in March when a large part of everyday life shut down to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Among them was the effort to slow and reverse the spread of HIV in the Huntington area.

Since then, the number of known HIV cases in Cabell County has increased, due in part to anti-coronavirus measures.

As of July 15, Cabell County had 93 cases of HIV, many still linked to the cluster originally reported in 2019, according to the latest statistics available from the state. The county had 82 cases as of Jan. 26 and 85 as of April 8.

“Really, what we are seeing averages out to three new cases a month,” Dr. Michael Kilkenny, medical officer at the Cabell-Huntington Health Department, told The Herald-Dispatch reporter Taylor Stuck in an article published Sunday.

“Because of COVID-19 and safety measures required to protect patients and the staff, contact is limited. So the visits are shorter and less frequent. And this is a population that doesn’t really have the kind of telephone access others have, so the ways to stay in touch are limited. We are dependent on that personal interaction.”

People who have tested positive for HIV are not necessarily at increased risk for contracting COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Based on limited data, we believe people with HIV who are on effective HIV treatment have the same risk for COVID-19 as people who do not have HIV,” the CDC website says.

HIV.gov, a website of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, advises, “Continue taking your HIV medicine, follow the advice of your health care provider, and take everyday preventive actions to keep yourself and others safe from COVID-19.”

Kilkenny said HIV treatment is more successful when a person is also receiving treatment for substance use disorder, but the pandemic has also made finding treatment harder. The health department used to be able to drive people from the health department to a treatment facility, but that face-to-face service has been disrupted.

The harm reduction program never stopped operating - Kilkenny said it’s just not as easy as it once was. But clients can still get tested for HIV or other infectious diseases, get new syringes or referred to treatment.

To be sure, at the moment the COVID-19 virus has caused more harm to the overall health of Cabell County than HIV has in the past six months. That does not mean, however, that we can afford to forget about HIV prevention and treatment.

The health department’s needle exchange program had been criticized before the coronavirus pandemic hit, but not nearly enough to cause it to curtail its activities or end it. That criticism has died down since attention has been focused on the pandemic.

The numbers show that the HIV cluster in Cabell County has continued to get larger. Three new cases a month is better than six, but zero is a more acceptable number. The outreach program to help those with HIV and to prevent new infections must continue.

Each HIV case is a person. They’ve been overlooked by many these past five months, but they cannot be forgotten.

Online: https://www.herald-dispatch.com

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Aug. 10

The Charleston Gazette-Mail on racial disparities in West Virginia’s COVID-19 cases:

As reported by staff writer Joe Severino in Sunday’s edition of the Gazette-Mail, Blacks and Hispanics, combined, make up 5.6% of West Virginia’s total population. Yet, these two groups represent 15% of all COVID-19 cases in the state.

Meanwhile, a 2018 federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report shows the average life expectancy in the United States is 78.6 years of age, but in the town of Logan, it’s 56.9. That’s a 39% difference and the second-lowest life expectancy in the nation.

Cities in West Virginia are frequently name-checked in national studies as the least healthy in the country. The reasons behind the numbers are many. Systemic barriers hurt minority communities while the drug crisis scythes through thousands of people every year. Health care inaccessibility, food deserts and unreliable water service contribute to problems in more-rural areas. Low educational achievement doesn’t help. A cultural mistrust of medical professionals is sometimes a factor, as well.

Each of the problems can differ or multiply based on demographics, but the underpinning issue linking most of these hardships is poverty.

In West Virginia’s southern counties, the coal industry isn’t even a shell of what it was, jobs are hard to find and infrastructure is crumbling. In other places, a lack of opportunity or access to education means taking low-wage jobs, which, lacking longtime prosperity aside, are putting poorer West Virginians at risk during the pandemic. Many who are able to prosper, despite their obstacles or come from backgrounds with abundant resources, leave the state for better opportunities elsewhere.

While the battle against all of these problems has to be engaged on many fronts, opportunities for better-paying jobs would go a long way toward fighting all of them. At the same time, it’s hard to land investments that would bring those jobs when West Virginia is beset with so many blockades to a better, longer life and a trained, educated and drug-free workforce. It’s the snake eating its tail that has dogged this state for decades, and there are no easy answers.

But a start would be using some of the emergency federal funds from the CARES Act for the 20/20/20 Economic Justice and Equity Movement. It’s a plan from the Rev. Matthew Watts - a civic leader from Charleston’s West Side - that would distribute money to the 240 Census tracts in West Virginia where the poverty rate is 20% or higher. That could give these communities badly needed health resources and create other opportunities. If Watts’ plan, for whatever reason, doesn’t cut it with state leaders, they can at least use it as a starting point for something similar. It certainly beats Gov. Jim Justice’s plan to spend $50 million on road projects.

West Virginia leaders have a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do something that actually will affect change regarding poverty. They should take it.

Online: https://www.wvgazettemail.com

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Aug. 8

The Register-Herald on concerns that details are lacking from Gov. Jim Justice’s school reopening plan:

We get it. Gov. Jim Justice is under a lot of pressure during a tumultuous time in our nation’s history when confirmed cases of Covid-19, a highly infectious and sometimes lethal virus, are higher lately than what they have been for most of its run through the West Virginia population - and above what the governor and most citizens of the state would prefer to be fully confident that we can open our schools on Sept. 8.

Pressure comes with the office, certainly, but that’s no reason for the governor to go off on teachers for questioning his somewhat well-intentioned but nebulous plans to open the classroom door. Yes, it is the campaign season but that is not reason enough to view all counterpoints to and questions of the governor’s agenda in political terms – as he did. We hope that we have not arrived at a place in our policy dialogue, in our shared conversations, where every utterance, every idea, every intention must be viewed through a prism of politics.

What a dreary and dispiriting world that would be.

What we are all interested in is getting the kids back to the classroom, back with their friends, their classmates and their teachers. Back to education. Back to learning. Not for the sake of our economy, though that is important, but first and foremost for the well-being of our children. In-person education must be prioritized, particularly for young children, for those with special needs and especially for those for whom school offers a sanctuary from the trauma of abuse – physical and emotional – in broken homes shattered by the drug epidemic and other maladies of life.

But all of this needs to happen in an environment made as safe as possible, with solid plans and the necessary resources to pull it all off. And that, in and of itself, is one treacherous mountain to climb. We all know that the virus spreads most efficiently in places where people congregate, where there is a captive audience. Prisons, churches, nursing homes, meat processing facilities and bars come to mind.

And, yes, schools.

In a perfect world, anyone who enters a school would be tested – at least once a week. But we are pretty sure there have been no accommodations made for that. And we saw the consequence of rushing back into the fire in news reports from the South and the Midwest this past week. A high school in Indiana had to shift to online learning after just two days of opening its doors. More than 200 employees were barred from work in Georgia’s largest school district. And students in Mississippi were forced to quarantine after classmates tested positive for the coronavirus during the first week of classes.

That is not a dish we want served here in West Virginia.

So, yes, by all means, teachers have every right – as does every parent and citizen of this state – to question the governor about his plan and ask for details. We have decisions to make out here in the real world and we need more – not less – information.

On Aug. 5, Justice shared his plan for reopening schools during the coronavirus pandemic, sharing strategies that included a color-coded map to designate whether it was safe for districts to keep schools open and to what degree, a goal of installing 1,000 WiFi hotspots for students and a discussion of teachers having their own choice about working in-school or virtually.

All commendable, but the details were missing.

To quote an old and effective advertisement, “Where’s the beef?”

Indeed. The governor did not say what metrics would be used to trigger any of the four coded colors, each stipulating at what level schools could operate. He did not say how bus drivers could find the time to transport kids to school, to band rehearsal, to athletic practices and to the one thousand points of light wireless access points – many of which have yet to be established because this is, after all, rural and remote West Virginia – or how many bus drivers would have to be hired and how many more buses would have to be put into service to accomplish all of that.

Nor did the governor say how much all of this would cost.

This governor likes to dream big – and then leave it to others to figure out the logistics.

But on this, he has to take the lead.

Reopening our schools is daunting, as one official at the press conference said this past week, with hundreds of variables, each a Gordian knot of its own.

What we do not need on the menu at this point in time are additional uncertainty and poisonous politics.

But that is exactly what the governor served this week – on a silver platter.

Online: https://www.register-herald.com