The Riley County health department is close to vaccinating 30 percent of those eligible with the COVID vaccine.

Speaking to the Riley County commission, Local Health Officer Julie Gibbs says the health department has fully vaccinated over 14,000 of the 62,000 residents eligible to receive the vaccine. However, there are 209 locations outside of Riley County where some residents are getting vaccinated, which means that number is likely much higher.

“We know that about 40,000 vaccinations have been given. We’re not able to determine how many first or second doses, but those 40,000 vaccines have been given to Riley County residents,” she said.

There are around 20 different locations within the county where residents are getting vaccinated as well. Commission Chair John Ford says the National Association of Counties shows the three county region here is at a 22 percent non-committal rate for getting vaccinated.

“That 70 to 80 percentile rate, it’s not going to happen. I think we’re looking at trying to maybe get to 50 percent or two-thirds. That’s going to be the ceiling for whatever reason. That is what it is,” he said.

While 14,000 residents are fully vaccinated, around 6,000 have received their first dose from the health department.

In other business Thursday, county commissioners approved the health department’s request to apply for CDC funding to boost awareness surrounding COVID and flu vaccines, which will also include dollars for an ad campaign locally. Gibbs says they’ve had trouble in the past even getting flu vaccine numbers to be adequate.

“My thought is to maybe a hire another community health specialist, like what we have now for the RADxUp program,” she said.

Gibbs sought, and the commission approved the full amount of $100,000 in grant funding. The grant cycle would start in June  and end in April 2022. The current RADX specialists will be leaving in June, so Gibbs says this new specialist will pick up where they left off.

The purpose will be to ensure underserved populations are reached through the added awareness.

Gibbs also received approval to add more contact tracers through December. Extended ELC funding from the KDHE is available starting in July after the current funding cycle runs out.

Gibbs says while the tracers’ primary duty of investigation has gone down with the number of cases, they are also responsible for data entry, general vaccination calls, and gathering vaccine information from other vaccination clinics in the county.

There is no fiscal impact to the county since these funds come from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

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