By Charles Young, WV News
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The beginning of a new year is an opportunity to reflect, assess and set new goals.
The reflection and assessment let us decide if we have been going down the right path over the previous year, and the new goals set a hopeful path for the year to come.
As we say goodbye to 2021 and look to start 2022, WV News reached out to a group of state leaders and officials to ask them: What’s next? What steps do you hope to see taken in the year ahead that will help progress West Virginia as a whole?
Dr. Clay Marsh, state COVID czar:
“I think that 2022 is a critical transitional year in the COVID-19 pandemic. At the beginning of 2022, the Omicron variant of COVID-19 will impact West Virginia with an explosive increase in COVID-19 cases. The impact on hospitalizations and deaths will be defined by how many West Virginians are vaccinated and boosted. Our hospital capacity will be challenged, and hospital function has a direct impact on the health of West Virginians and the number of deaths that occur…