By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Karen Hammersmith with the Reno County Health Department notes that it is the intent of the department to move on to vaccinating essential workers before the end of March.
"We're focusing on some of those strategic plants that we know can't social distance," Hammersmith said. "We will be doing Tyson later in the week next week. We'll go out there and vaccinate anyone that needs to be vaccinated out there. Then, I know Hutchinson Clinic and Prairie Star are also working on some of their occupational medicine groups that they work with on a regular basis."
This is in addition to the vaccine they have already distributed to K-12 educational employees.
"It's easy to identify, you know, people that have 50 and higher employees. Those are a little bit easier to identify, but that doesn't mean that we're catching everybody. If somebody has a group of 15, but yet they are interacting with the public all the time, you know, or can't social distance because they are in a small building. We don't want to leave those out, either."
The goal is to finish up the 65 plus people they have missed for sure by the 15th.
"We have pods that we are filling," Hammersmith said. "We have filled the one for Monday the 8th, but the 15th is open and I know other places have openings, as well, but we want to finish up that group and then we are moving on to high-contact critical workers."
Be watching the Health Department's website for those high-contact critical workers who do not work at a large employer to have an opportunity to sign up later this month.
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