CHARLESTON, W.Va. –
Since beginning operations in support of the state’s COVID-19 response 83 days ago, the West Virginia National Guard has completed 1,353 missions through our six lines of effort of operationalizing of the event, stabilizing the population, providing logistical movement of critical supplies, innovation, state surge capacity and capability, and conducting data analysis to combat the virus. Currently, 555 members of the WVNG are on duty serving the citizens of the State of West Virginia.
Today, Maj. Gen. James Hoyer, Adjutant General of the WVNG, outlined the Guard’s support to the West Virginia Strong Summer Food Assistance Program. During the press briefing, Governor Justice announced the improved coordination between community, state and federal nutritional resources that will assist West Virginians in finding resources within their communities via an interactive map, which is available at https://governor.wv.gov/summerfeeding/Pages/default.aspx
Since the beginning of COVID-19 response operations, the Guard has provided assistance to numerous food banks and the West Virginia Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters (WVVOAD) to help food insecure West Virginians. In the last 83 days, we have helped in the production, packaging and delivery of more than 324,575 meals across the state.
Beginning tomorrow and through Saturday, Task Force CRE and Task Force Medical will assist with COVID-19 testing lanes in McDowell, Ohio and Harrison Counties. Additional COVID-19 testing lanes are being planned for an 10 counties throughout the state in the coming weeks.
To date, Task Force CRE and Task Force Medical have conducted 106 COVID-19 lane support missions testing 8,980 individuals and 4,007 tests as a part of their rapid response mission.
Task Force CRE is continuing to provide PPE training for various businesses, state agencies and first responders. To date, this team has trained 821 businesses, 4,567 personnel and 102 medical or long-term care facilities.
In the last 24 hours, West Virginia Guardsmen and women maintained the missions at the Clarksburg and Huntington Food Banks, and completed 200 bags of produce and delivered 300 meals to Mason County via refrigerated trailers.
Task Force Sustainment, the team dedicated to receiving and moving critical supplies across the state, delivered PPE to state agencies, assembled 10,000 Coronavirus test kits and packaged and labeled 130,000 KN95 masks for distribution.
West Virginia Guard personnel assisting in sanitization lanes for first responder and public transport vehicles have sanitized 516 vehicles in two locations – Huntington and Charleston – which includes ambulances, police vehicles and public transport buses.
West Virginia National Guard medical personnel augmenting DHHR’s regional epidemiology teams in place conducting data entry into the state disease surveillance system and conducting COVID-19 mapping which resulted in 157 engagements and two expedited transfers to the state lab. To date, the state’s seven regional epidemiology teams have conducted more than 9,898 voluntary COVID-19 mappings.
All current and future missions performed by the WVNG are a part of a coordinated state-level public health preparation and response effort for the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, initiated by Governor Jim Justice, and being led by the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources.
B-roll footage of current and ongoing WVNG missions are available at: www.dvidshub.net/units/wv-ang