Good on you, West Virginia

All around the country, people are tearing out their hair in the pursuit of the COVID-19 vaccine.

In some states, you apparently have a better chance of seeing Bigfoot than securing a shot. Some desperate folks are driving hundreds of miles, only to be turned away because their health departments have depleted their supplies.

In Florida, seniors are said to be sleeping in lawn chairs on sidewalks in the hopes of getting lucky enough to get a shot.

We’d probably be doing the same, was there not the risk of becoming Popsicles.

Yet, of all the states scrambling to protect their citizens from COVID-19, only West Virginia, seems to have gotten it right.

That’s right. West-by-God Virginia. With one of the highest success rates of vaccinations in the country. West Virginia distributed 93.7 percent of its allotted first-dose supply as of last week.

West Virginia also is one of the top states in distributing the second dose.

Now, the reason this might come as a surprise is that West Virginia has long been a whipping boy because it is rural and largely poor. Its residents consistently rank near the bottom for good health, and highest for chronic illness.

Wild and beautiful, West Virginia has been left at the altar by both political parties. From their water to the mountains, their natural resources are constantly at risk.

In addition to poverty, West Virginia has been decimated by opioid abuse; a side effect of despair and hopelessness that has destroyed untold lives and endangered countless children.

In the case of the vaccines, Gov. Jim Justice insisted that instead of dispatching the vaccines to chain stores, where some people would have to travel far to reach, it be distributed by locally owned pharmacies, where people know and trust the owners.

Now, Justice is no paragon of virtue. A coal mining billionaire, he owes neighboring states millions in liens, fines and land-reclamation fees.

But sometimes, you’ve even got to give the devil his due.

Justice opted out of the federal vaccine plan, which put emphasis on long-term care facilities. He also rejected teaming up with big-box retailers and chain pharmacies, choosing instead to create a network of locally owned pharmacies, which constitute half of the state’s pharmacies.

The state also empowered the West Virginia National Guard to implement a strategy for distribution because logistics is what the Guard does.

Almost Heaven

The Guard, in turn, created an in-person “command center” that has the capacity to respond quickly when problems occur.

West Virginia has the capacity to administer 125,000 doses a day, though it is getting less than 25,000.

Meanwhile, in Ohio, a pharmacy lost nearly 900 doses of the vaccine because of bad record-keeping.

State Sen. Dr. Stephen Huffman, who lost his hospital job after questioning whether “the colored population” was being vigilant in their COVID-19 hygiene, has been appointed to a state health board by his cousin, state Sen. Matt Huffman. I only wish I was kidding. Meanwhile, someone just shot up the home of Dr. Mary Kate Francis, the state’s assistant medical director.

Ohio is dead last in the nation in issuing second doses of the vaccine after the decision was made to preserve most of its inventory for nursing home patients. Other states opted to immunize frontline health care workers first, thereby reducing the likelihood of infection among residents. How else would they be getting it? Granted, West Virginia is one-tenth the size of Ohio’s population of 11 million. As with anything, their rollout wasn’t perfect - mostly because there were people involved.

But for all of the snickering and West Virginia wisecracks, the state which markets itself as “Almost Heaven” is getting the last laugh.