West Virginia Governor Jim Justice announced more changes to the metrics used to determine the color warning map that is being used to determine which counties can have in-person learning in schools, what level of extra-curricular activities can take place and who can attend those activities. 

 

"The orange color code is too wide," Justice said. "What we are goinng to do is insert another color into the system."

 

That color is gold, which was hinted at during Monday's press conference when Justice announced there would be an emergency meeting between him and his advisors Monday evening. And the gold level goes into effect today.

 

Gold will go in between yellow and orange on the map and will cover counties in to 10 to 14.9 percent range. Orange will be 15 to 24.9. The ranges for green, yellow and red remain the same.

 

"We're learning in real time here and as the Governor has said, there is no playbook," the state's Coronavirus Czar Dr. Clay Marsh said. "A lot of people have strong opinions but we are looking at this how can we make the system safer and better."

 

Marsh said one thing that became clear from the assesment at Monday's meeting is that the original metrics used for the map created a situation that was the opposite intention of health officials.

 

"We want to increase testing," Marsh said. "We need accelarted testing to gather information but the map ended up motivating people to test less because that's how they thought they could keep their county's color from changing."

 

Marsh explained that moving forward that a county's infection rate will continue to be applied to the metrics for each county but so will the positivity rate. Lowering either of those numbers could get a county into a safer color.

 

Marsh also said along with the latest tweak, there will be more of an emphasis put on local health departments to stronger enforce the mask and social distancing executive orders.

 

State Superintendent Clayton Burch said he was on board for any tweak to the system that would help get more children back in school.

 

"We had 67,000 children impacted by this," Burch said in reference to orange and red counties that have yet to begin in-school learning.

 

Burch said that if apply the new gold standard to last Saturday's map, five counties that were orange would have been gold — Putnam, Fayette, Logan, Mingo and Boone — and could have had in-person school this week.

 

Although a gold level would allow in-person school, there will still be some strict guidelines such as masks must be worn at all time in grades 3-12 and there will be no large assemblies.

 

West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission Director Bernie Dolan was also present at Tuesday's briefing and said gold counties will be permitted to play games against in-county foes or out of county schools who are also gold. Parents and guardians will be the only fans admitted to gold level games.

 

Dolan said the attendance policies for green and yellow counties have been tweaked to add grandparents to be allowed in.

 

Justice said that effective immediately no travel ball tournaments will be allowed in gold, orange or red counties.

 

The upated guidelines for each color on the map can be found on the Department of Education's website HERE

 

It was also announced that more information about nursing home visitations and WVU's positive students will be discussed at Wednesday's press conference.

 

Video from Tuesday's press conference can be viewed below.