Morgan County Seeing Uptick in Vaccinations as Cases Rise

By Jeremy Coumbes on August 10, 2021 at 2:18pm

The Morgan County Health Department is seeing an uptick in COVID-19 vaccinations as cases continue to rise in West Central Illinois.

Morgan County remains a hot spot for community transmission and is listed as a high transmission area by both the Illinois Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Jacqui Barrenger with the Morgan County Health Department says the increase in cases and outbreaks in the area is not surprising to her currently. She says the health department believes that they are now seeing the Delta variant in the majority of new cases.

Barrenger says along with the rise in cases, the number of people opting to get the vaccine is starting to increase once again.

We’ve moved the vaccinations back to the Health Department. We are currently giving vaccines on a daily basis in the double-digit numbers, so we are pleased with that and we hope people keep coming. When we went back out to the hospital, we were giving vaccines one day a week and seeing numbers of like 30 or 40, so I think we are exceeding that right now.”

Barrenger says the health department is not exactly sure what is driving the increase in vaccinations. She says it very well could be that more people are beginning to trust the vaccine now that the Delta variant is the dominant strain.

It also could be with the Delta variant and its transmissibility. We are currently in the red if you’ve seen the map on the Illinois Department of Public Health where we are a high transmission area as well as most of the lower part of the state. So maybe that people are getting sick around them is what is doing it. We are just glad they are coming in, we are glad they are there.

Let’s look at it if someone gets their vaccine today, their first dose today, it’s going to be about five weeks before they totally get their immunity. Because they’ve got twenty-one days if it’s Pfizer and then we give the second vaccine and then it’s two weeks after that.”

Barrenger says the health department is urging those who have not yet been vaccinated to consider it. She says they are susceptible to the virus while unvaccinated, likening it to a fire and the more wood that is put on it, the greater the fire becomes.

To register to receive the vaccine in Morgan County, go to www.morgsahd.com, or by calling 217-245-5111.