By Esteban Fernandez, CNHI West Virginia
BECKLEY — Arguments in the vaccine exemption lawsuit came down to whether the presence of unvaccinated people would truly harm individuals with immunocompromised medical status at Wednesday’s hearing at the Raleigh County Courthouse.
The hearing was a continuation of one that took place about a month earlier in September. Miranda Guzman, a Raleigh County resident, sued the Raleigh County Board of Education in June, after the school district rescinded a religious exemption order Guzman obtained from the state. Gov. Patrick Morrisey issued an executive order earlier this year directing the Bureau for Public Health to create a religious or philosophical exemption process for the state’s compulsory vaccine law despite the state legislature declining to pass the governor’s changes to the law that would have added religious or philosophical exemptions to state code.
After the governor issued his executive order, the West Virginia Board of Education told county level school boards to continue following the law, as set by the state legislature. Guzman entered the conflict between the governor and the legislature on the side of the governor, suing the State Board of Education in an attempt to obtain an injunction against the board’s directives. However, after Guzman filed her case, the parents of two immunocompromised students intervened in the case, due to the impact the weakening of the state’s vaccination laws could have on their children’s health.
The Wednesday hearing was the third day overall for the bench trial held in Raleigh County Circuit Court Judge Michael Froble’s courtroom. West Virginia Board of Education President Paul Hardesty testified, as did the parents of the two immunocompromised students. Shannon McBee, the state epidemiologist, closed out the day of testimony.