Vaccines available by appointment

AP File

Butler County has five new COVID-19 cases this week, bringing the active local cases to seven for a total since the pandemic began locally of 4,527.

While the numbers locally are down, area officials are waiting to see how the state will react to government offices reopening and the governor’s decision to stop the enhanced federal unemployment program.

Butler County Emergency Management Agency Director Robbie Myers said, while “we do not know what the impact” of the state reopening will be in Jefferson City or in local communities, it will get everyone “much closer to a sense of normalcy more than anything.”

Gov. Mike Parson has said more people who are unemployed need to go back to work. The enhanced federal unemployment program is to expire in 30 days in Missouri, which, Myers said, will be “getting things back to where we were, hopefully, to a large extent pre-COVID. Some of the different programs, whether it’s a National Guard and the unemployment, or the virtual openings of the different state offices, those changes are starting to get everyone back to pre-COVID time. Hopefully, we will get to that here this summer.”

Butler County Health Department Director Emily Goodin shared facts about vaccines to be given locally.

“We are still doing COVID vaccines here at the health department, of course by appointment only,” Goodin said. “We’re finishing up our booster clinics, but we are now scheduling every Friday to be a scheduled COVID vaccination day.”

“Anybody, if you need a booster, or even a primary dose, give us a call at the health department and we will get you scheduled on a Friday appointment,” Goodin said.

Along with the vaccines, Goodin said, “we are doing our booster clinic with the National Guard and of course, Robbie and several other volunteers at the Elks Lodge on Friday, May 21. The National Guard will be back in town. It is scheduled as a booster clinic, however, we’ll take first doses as well, knowing we could finish them up at the health department, and that will be the Moderna vaccine.”

Goodin said, as far as testing, “we are still doing COVID testing at the health department by appointment only every Wednesday. So, if you need a test, you can make an appointment via our website or our Facebook page.”

Boys and Girls Club Director Chris Rushin told the group, the Boys and Girls Club had 420 in attendance Tuesday.

“We are on the countdown to our last week of school,” Rushin said. “So we’ll continue to do all the protocols for everything. We’ve talked about it for every single week.”