County to get influx of vaccine

Chickasaw County Public Health and Homecare Services will in all likelihood pass the 4,000 vaccine mark this week, thanks to the fact that the state is providing the county with an additional 300 COVID-19 vaccines.
As of Friday, Public Health Administrator Lisa Welter said her nurses have distributed vaccine to a little more than 3,500 residents, and in addition to the usual 200 Moderna vaccines the county usually receives, the county will also receive 300 Johnson and Johnson vaccines this week.
“Everything is going well,” Welter said on Friday, the day she released her weekly COVID-19 report, “and as soon as we’re getting vaccines, we’re giving them out. We haven’t wasted any vaccine. If we get it, it gets used.”
Welter’s comments came at the end of a week in which Chickasaw County reported just four positive  tests for the Coronavirus, and while the Public Health head said she was pleased with the continued low rate of positive tests, she wasn’t about to declare the pandemic over.
“I know I say the same thing every week,” she said, “but we’re still urging people to use common sense, mask up if they can’t social distance and just be smart. We’ve made tremendous progress in the last couple of months, and I would just hate to see people let their guard down now.”
Welter said the county this week will begin vaccinating members of the general public who have signed up to get the vaccine. Monday was the first day Gov. Kim Reynolds’ proclamation openingvaccines to all went into effect.
— For more on this story, see the April 6 Tribune or the April 8 Reporter