COVID vaccine discussed at weekly briefing

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The distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine was among the topics discussed during the Butler County COVID briefing Wednesday.

“We are in the planning stages for a vaccine distribution,” said Hank Voelker, regional coordinator with the Missouri Emergency Management Agency. “Those meetings are being held in Jeff City. I don’t know the outcome, but they are being held.”

Voelker said, “We have received now 780 requests for public assistance through FEMA from local communities across the state of Missouri. I believe I reported in the response division our Medical Response Team yesterday completed their 200th mission. They’ve completed missions here in Southeast Missouri. I believe they’ve been here in Butler County even.”

While the state is in the early planning stages for the vaccine, the number of COVID-19 cases grew by 32 today, bringing the cases locally to 2,712 since the beginning of the pandemic.

Butler County Health Center Director Emily Goodin said, “We did have our mass clinic Monday held at Whiteley Park. We had 437 people come through. We are today starting to get results in, so we will be reaching out to all the positive and negative people to inform them of the results.”

“We are holding another clinic or another mass testing event on Monday, Dec. 7,” Goodin said. “I believe, actually, next Friday, Dec. 11 the National Guard was supposed to come down. Something happened with the scheduling and unfortunately, they’re not going to be able to come down.”

The health center is going to stick to it’s Monday schedule, and Goodin said, “we will be doing an event on the 7th, the 14th and then again on the 28th” in December.

On a positive note, Chris Rushin, executive director of the Boys and Girls Club, said. “It’s been another good week for us. To be honest with you guys, we’re really starting to see across the board the number of quarantine people going down as far as the kids go. I know that’s not the case for some of the folks in our generation.

“We’re starting to see our enrollment start to climb back up. We’ve been averaging about 420, the first couple of days of this week, first whole week that we’ve had in a couple of weeks. I think things are starting to get better from the standpoint of attendance. So things are getting better on our end.”

Goodin reminded the group anyone may walk into the Butler County Health Center and receive a flu shot.

“We are still accepting walk ins for flu shots,” she said. “So, we are urging everybody to get your flu shot. You don’t need an appointment, just come to the health department, and we can take care of it.”