Justice: Final call on WV schools reopening to be made by Sept. 1

Last week, Justice unveiled a county-by-county school reopening plan featuring a four-level color scale, with status ranging from green — meaning all in-person classroom teaching and full extracurricular activities — to red, with entirely distance learning and no extracurriculars.

Justice said the metrics for determining the status of schools would be unveiled soon.

However, he said Monday the variables affecting the reopening plan are constantly changing. As examples, he cited announcements by college sports conferences canceling fall football seasons and a national report indicating that nearly 100,000 children contracted COVID-19 in the final two weeks of July.

“I’m really concerned about the 100,000 positive cases among younger people,” Justice said, adding, “We absolutely will do everything in our power to not put our kids and teachers and service personnel into any situation that we believe is a danger or unsafe.”

Justice conceded that the state “does not have the capability” to test all students, faculty and staff at public schools, as is being done at state colleges and universities.

Last week, Justice disputed a claim by President Donald Trump contending that it is safe to reopen schools this fall by claiming children are “virtually immune” from contracting COVID-19.

Dr. Clay Marsh, vice president of health sciences at West Virginia University and the state’s coronavirus czar, said children account for about 380,000 of the 5 million positive cases of COVID-19 nationally, with about 80 deaths and 570 treated for potentially life-threatening complications.

Also at Monday’s briefing:

• Justice said he is considering reinstating a ban on visitations at nursing homes and long-term care facilities following COVID-19 outbreaks at 30 facilities.

He said the state also needs to pursue the “daunting task” of retesting all nursing home residents and staff.

Department of Health and Human Resources Secretary Bill Crouch said most of the outbreaks involve one or two positive cases, while Pine Lodge nursing home in Raleigh County has 46 cases (33 residents and 13 staff members) and Grant County Rehabilitation and Care Center has 42 cases (33 residents and nine staff).

Meanwhile, the death toll at Princeton Health Center has reached 11, as eight previously unrecorded resident deaths were reported to the state over the weekend.

West Virginia Public Health Officer Ayne Amjad said Monday that part of the reason for the delay in getting the death reports to the state is that the center’s medical director has been hospitalized with COVID-19.

Justice ordered a ban on nursing home visitations on March 12, a ban that was lifted June 17.

• Justice pledged that the state will pay its share of an extension of supplemental unemployment compensation benefits under an executive order signed by Trump Saturday, even if the federal funding is delayed over questions regarding the president’s constitutional authority to take such action.

Legal scholars say the executive order might usurp congressional authority to appropriate funds under the Constitution, and it might be challenged in court.

Trump’s order would replace $600-a-week supplemental unemployment benefits enacted in April — benefits that expired at the end of July — with a $400-a-week payment, but it would require states to pick up $100 a week of that total.

Justice said Monday that would cost West Virginia $26 million a week for 12 weeks, adding, “We’ll pay it, and we’ll be very willing to pay it.”

Trump signed the order Saturday, with Congress deadlocked over a pandemic relief plan passed by the House of Representatives in May.

In April, Justice parked $687 million of the state’s $1.25 billion in federal CARES Act relief funds in the state’s unemployment trust fund — more than enough to pay the estimated $312 million cost of the supplemental payments.