CHARLESTON, W.Va. – “This disease is all about the unvaccinated. It’s your choice, but If you choose not to get vaccinated, there’s an awfully good chance that things are not going to be really good for you. That’s all there is to it,” said West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice during Monday’s virtual COVID-19 briefing.
“I’d be running over top of somebody to get vaccinated, because it’s safe and we’ve seen the effectiveness of it over and over again,” Justice continued. “Why in the world can’t we just listen(to doctors) and go and get vaccinated on a voluntary basis?” the governor asked. “We don’t have to have the rhetoric if we just listen to good common sense,” he went on.
The briefing also included an appearance by State Sen. Tom Takubo, the Republican majority leader, who is also a doctor. “Show me a hospital that’s overran by vaccine injuries,” Takubo said, explaining that he hasn’t treated a single patient with a significant adverse reaction to the vaccine. On the other hand, Takubo went on to explain that many of his patients are still seeing effects from COVID five months after being infected.
The mother of one of Dr. Takubo’s COVID patients also spoke during the briefing, explaining that, in July, she, her husband and her 40-year-old son all went to “an attraction with thousands of people in and out in a day, no masks, social distancing or ventilation.” All three got COVID-19. She and her husband had been vaccinated, but her her son had not, she said. The couple did not “have a hard time,” while their son remains in the hospital, under sedation. The woman said her son did get a shot because he “listened to all the negative and false information about vaccinations,” she explained.
The state’s coronavirus dashboard was experiencing a technical problem, Monday morning, officials said, but Justice reported there are 27,607 active COVID-19 cases in West Virginia. A new series of all-time highs was again set with 852 hospitalizations, 267 patients in ICUs and 164 people on ventilators. “A bunch of those will die,” Justice said.
For comparison purposes, in the first week of July, those numbers were: 52 hospitalizations, 17 ICU patients, with six on ventilators, Dr. Clay Marsh said.
There are currently 89 outbreaks in schools in 33 counties, Justice also reported.7
