Last week, Pulaski County was placed in the red status on the Indiana Department of Health’s COVID-19 map. But the county commissioners aren’t ready to reinstate any restrictions.
Terri Hansen with the Pulaski County Health Department told the commissioners Monday that the county has seen up to 30 positive cases a day in recent weeks. “It is different this year, and we do find a lot of the public is not taking is as seriously or aren’t as concerned, unless it affects them personally,” she said. “A lot of them are blowing it off, I’m sorry to say.”
Now, Hansen says the Health Department would like stricter guidelines. But if someone were to do that, it would likely have to be the county commissioners. “This year, we haven’t seen hide nor hair of the governor,” Hansen said. “He has not been having those video conferences every day. We haven’t been seeing too much guidance from the state health commissioner. I know they’re busy. I know that things changed constantly. We understand that. We are getting some guidance from the state health department, not as much, I would say. Things are just changing so much. They’ve pretty much turned it back over to the counties.”
Commissioner Mike McClure thought the county should give it more time. He was hopeful that residents would eventually start taking care of themselves but worried that any mandates would largely be ignored.
At the same time, Hansen said the Health Department has been busy with vaccinations, especially now that the Pfizer booster shot is available. With the possibility of Moderna and Johnson and Johnson boosters, as well as Pfizer doses for children as young as five, becoming available in the coming weeks, she expects to remain busy.
“With the Delta variant that’s here now, so many of our positive cases have been children,” she explained. “We’re talking little kids, even, too. We had a whole bunch of kids under the age of six that were positive. So people are anxious for their younger children to get vaccinated.”
Starting Thursday, October 14, the Health Department’s vaccination site will move back to the Winamac Knights of Columbus, to accommodate the additional demand. Hansen also reported that the county has gotten almost $43,000 in funding help from the state, from the administrative fees billed to insurance companies for COVID-19 vaccines.
