CHARLESTON — Small outbreaks of the coronavirus at several churches in West Virginia were caught early by local and state health officials, with Gov. Jim Justice urging people to wear masks and continue to follow social distance guidelines.

Over the weekend, the state Department of Health and Human Resources identified five churches that saw coronavirus outbreaks.

Justice, speaking Monday during a COVID-19 briefing at the State Capitol, confirmed that one of those churches was Graystone Baptist Church in Greenbrier County. DHHR did not identify the other churches.

“Graystone Baptist Church, right in my backyard right where I live,” said Justice, who commutes to Charleston from his home in Lewisburg. “If I’m not here at the mansion, I’m there.”

According to Justice, there are 28 positive cases tied to Graystone, which resulted in the West Virginia National Guard moving to decontaminate the church. DHHR and the Greenbrier County Health Department are working on contact tracing to determine how much the virus may have spread in the community.

The National Guard also held free drive-through coronavirus testing in Greenbrier County Sunday and Monday.

Justice said the spread at Graystone can likely be tied to lack of social distancing among church members and lack of face coverings.

“We’re also being told that maybe we didn’t use the level of caution there,” Justice said. “Maybe we didn’t social distance properly or properly wear masks or whatever may be. That doesn’t really matter, does it? We have 28 positive tests in Greenbrier County. What do we do? We run to the fire.”

Dr. Cathy Slemp, state health officer and commissioner of the Bureau of Public Health, said that constant communication with county health departments coupled with the County Alert System put into place last month to identify COVID-19 surges allows health officials to quickly identify small outbreaks before they become big outbreaks.

“Health departments are constantly on the lookout for this and identifying situations when they emerge,” Slemp said. “We hear about these through the local health department’s work. We identify them through other mechanisms that come in, and we often see a correlation with some of the monitoring mechanisms we use.”

Dr. Clay Marsh, the state coronavirus czar, said residents must continue to avoid the three Cs — closed spaces, constant contacts with people you don’t live with, and crowds. As an example, Marsh said a choir practice at a church in Washington state resulted in the spread of the virus to 56 out of the 62 choir members.

“As we think about gathering places, whether they are churches or stores or restaurants, we know that the more we’re inside with each other, the higher risk we have to transfer the virus,” Marsh said. “There are a few people that can become infected, and even before they know that they’re infected they can infect many other people.

Justice said he understood the inconvenience of wearing a mask, but if it can save one life, Justice said the inconvenience is worth it. Justice urged the public to wear masks whenever social distancing is impossible.

“What happens if we lose a couple of people or maybe more that are in a community … because of an inconvenience of wearing a mask,” Justice asked. “It’s a big price to pay. West Virginians, please listen to me … we can enjoy all the things in life even if it’s a little inconvenient.”

(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)