Governor Jim Justice announced today the end of the state’s mask mandate a little over a month from now.
The governor announced Sunday, June 20 will the last day of the mask mandate executive order Justice signed around fourteen months ago.
During his conference on coronavirus response, Justice said more vaccines will be administered by the anniversary of W.Va. becoming a state.
“By that time,” Justice said, “We’ll have in place many of our sixteen to 35-year-olds vaccinated, and probably many of our twelve to fifteen-year-olds.”
The Food and Drug Administration may give emergency authorization to administer the vaccine to children between ages of twelve and fifteen as soon as this week.
Centers for Disease control report around 43% of the country’s adult population is fully vaccinated. As of Monday morning, the Mountain State has fully vaccinated around 38% of the state’s population.
The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources reported 211 new cases of coronavirus in the state this morning.
There were 3 deaths reported in the last 24 hours. Since the onset of the outbreak, 2,729 West Virginians have died due to complications from the coronavirus.
W.Va. has 6,983 active cases of COVID-19. Today’s daily infection rate is 5.14%.
Justice gave another update today on his plan to reward vaccinated individuals between the ages of 16 and 35. Justice said it will be a choice between a $100 savings bond or gift card.
“We can go where the people can get a savings bond," Justice said, "or you can go the other way where you can go straight with a gift card."
Justice said the savings bond will be issued electronically.
Justice’s office is still working out the details.