Olmsted County, Mayo officials deal with lack of vaccine supply
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While progress for vaccine rollout has been slow progress is being made.
Olmsted County Public Health Director Graham Briggs
Olmsted County Public Health Director Graham Briggs said 38,000 county residents have gotten a first dose. 22,000 have received both doses that is about 14.3% of the population that s fully vaccinated, Briggs said.
However, the bad weather across much of the rest of the nation has now lead to shipping delays and no new vaccine doses arriving.
Mayo Clinic Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Abinash Virk
Mayo Clinic Infectious Disease Specialist Dr. Abinash Virk said it s unclear when the next shipment will arrive.
In these meetings, both Mayo Clinic and MDH officials were excited that hundreds of thousands of Minnesota residents have received the vaccine and are optimistic about the future.
School board won t guarantee a return to classrooms for this year. 5:24 am, Jan. 6, 2021 ×
Elementary students in Rochester will return to a hybrid-learning model starting Jan. 19.
But the Rochester School Board decision on Tuesday stopped short of guaranteeing those students would return to an in-person learning model later on, as its COVID-19 advisory committee recommended.
The decision followed three hours of discussion and was approved with a 5-2 vote, with board members Karen MacLaughlin and Julie Workman dissenting.
Workman emphasized the need for consistency. What happens if we go back to hybrid and then a week later everything hits the fan? Workman asked. I think part of the problem is it s a constant yo-yo. I would feel more comfortable with continuing with the distance learning model that we re on now.
Briggs said that knowledge doesn’t give comfort for people who have lost loved ones.
“Forty-six is too many families that have to suffer locally,” he said.
While he said more local deaths are likely, he added that hospitalization numbers appear to be dropping, with approximately five new COVID-related admissions a day among Olmsted County residents. Forty-three residents were in the hospital on Tuesday.
“There’s a lag there, where it’s not quite as far down as our case rates,” he said, citing the recent decline in newly identified cases.
Briggs has noted in the past that increased hospitalizations and deaths typically follow two to three weeks after a spike in new cases.