It’s clear our residents want the COVID-19 vaccine

Members of the Missouri National Guard check information on those waiting in line Friday morning for their COVID-19 vaccination.

DAR/Paul Davis

Missouri’s first mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic on Friday didn’t exactly go off without a hiccup.

But hiccups are, for the most part, small, brief annoyances.

In this case, traffic was bumper to bumper for about two miles, more than an hour before the clinic opened. This lasted for quite a while, unfortunately.

The Missouri National Guard, Poplar Bluff Police Department, Missouri State Highway Patrol, Three Rivers College nursing students, Butler County Health Department officials and all of the medical volunteers who participated did an admirable job of trying to control traffic and move the 1,950 people registered through as quickly as possible.

For something that was put together on barely seven-days notice, the traffic was a small inconvenience compared to the apparently high demand for the vaccine.

The fact that hundreds of people showed up so early for this clinic underscores how much it is wanted.

The Poplar Bluff Municipal Library and Daily American Republic also saw that first hand during the registration process on Wednesday and Thursday. Both locations offered residents help in signing up for the online-only registration. Staff at the DAR estimate it helped between 400-500 people register, and let others who called know when the slots were filled.

The National Guard will move on to Cape Girardeau next week, and the Bootheel the week after that, before returning Feb. 12 to Poplar Bluff to provide the second Pfizer vaccine dose to those who received the first dose.

We hope Poplar Bluff will be fortunate enough to receive another first-dose vaccine clinic. It’s clear our residents want it, and see what we hope is the light at the end of the yearlong tunnel we’ve all traveled during this worldwide pandemic.

Thank you to the National Guard members, members of law enforcement and medical professionals who helped make today happen, and for everything you’ve already done. Thank you also to the owners of the former Hydro Adventures property where the clinic was held.

— Daily American Republic