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Members of the West Virginia National Guard monitor statewide efforts to distribute COVID-19 vaccines on Jan. 14 at the National Guard Joint Forces headquarters in Charleston. West Virginia has emerged an unlikely success in the nationâs otherwise chaotic vaccine rollout.Â
John Raby | The Associated Press
By ZACK HAROLD
For HD Media Mar 1, 2021
As national media descended on the state to figure out why, much of the reporting focused on the state’s decision to distribute vaccines through local pharmacies, bucking the federal plan to use the national chains CVS and Walgreens.
That isn’t the whole story of West Virginia’s vaccine triumph, however. The state’s path to success started long before there was a thing called Covid-19, much less a vaccine to fight it, and was grounded in the state’s unique response to a series of tragic disasters. One that may be hard to replicate.
In March 2020, as Covid-19 cases crept higher, West Virginia’s governor, Jim Justice, established a “joint interagency taskforce” to oversee the state’s pandemic response.