CHARLESTON, W.Va. –
Today, members of the West Virginia National Guard are providing support in McDowell, Ohio and Harrison Counties for high-density population COVID-19 testing, in partnership with the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs and local health departments.
Support by Task Force CRE and Task Force Medical personnel will be ongoing through tomorrow. 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.
Since beginning operations in support of the state’s COVID-19 response 84 days ago, the West Virginia National Guard has completed 1,367 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, 548 members of the WVNG are on duty serving the citizens of the State of West Virginia.
Task Force CRE is continuing to provide PPE training for various businesses, state agencies and first responders. To date, this team has trained 834 businesses, 4,589 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 served over 200 families. In addition, this team delivered 3,500 meals to Putnam County via refrigerated trailers.
Task Force Sustainment, the team dedicated to receiving and moving critical supplies across the state, delivered PPE to Pipestem State Park today.
West Virginia Guard personnel assisting in sanitization lanes for first responder and public transport vehicles have sanitized 534 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 233 engagements. To date, the state’s seven regional epidemiology teams have conducted more than 10,131 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