Washington – While states are working to speed up the administration of COVID-19 vaccines and improve the rocky roll of the shots, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has praised his state for its successful distribution of vaccines and the called ru ‘.
“At the moment we are at 98.1%, which are vaccines in people’s arms or names attached to them, which you will immediately put in the arms of people,” Justice, a Republican, told “Face the Nation” . in an interview Sunday. “We save all kinds of lives. We put our kids back in school. West Virginia was the diamond that many people missed.”
Since coronavirus vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna were first shipped to states in December, West Virginia has emerged as a leader in vaccine distribution. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 205,000 doses of the shots were distributed and more than 134,000 doses were administered in the state.
Justice said West Virginia’s success is because ‘we are practical thinking people with a lot of smart people here doing it.’
“A lot of governors were sitting on their hands trying to figure out a system or a formula that they were going to do. We were not sitting on our hands. I mean, we acted,” he said. “We brought in our local pharmacies. We brought in our local health departments. We brought in our national guard and we started putting shots in the arms of people because it’s all about age, age, age.”
Unlike other states, West Virginia has refused to participate in a federal program whereby CVS and Walgreens administered vaccines to residents and staff of long-term care facilities and instead relied on local pharmacies to deliver the shots. It then becomes the first state in the country to offer the vaccines to all nursing homes, and does so before the end of 2020.
Justice said it decided to reject the federal partnership program because “there are so many people dependent on their local health departments, their local pharmacies.”
‘If we have to create a bureaucracy with the guidelines of the federal government and everything, if we know it’s about age, age and age, we need to get a shot in the arms of people and get a chance every day in “someone’s arm saves us a life,” he said.
Nationwide, 31.1 million doses of coronavirus vaccine were distributed and 12.2 million doses were administered. According to the CDC, more than 10.5 million people received at least one dose of shots.