Page last updated on September 6, 2021 at 3:58 pm
Hi, this is Mayor John Hamilton. It's Monday, January 4th, 2021. Happy new year to you all. First message to the public this new year. Just quickly want to give you some updates at closed the year with thanks to everybody. I'll extend that again for all the great work, collaborative work, over the last nine, 10 months dealing with the pandemic. We are not out of the woods. There are very serious community spreads still going on. We're losing an average of one person to death a day in the County, and we see the incredibly important need to continue to wear masks, physically distance, wash your hands. Don't share air with people that you are not in your household.
I did want to give an update on the vaccines because that's certainly something we're looking forward to this year. Every Friday afternoon, by the way, we will continue the press conferences to update you on that. The most recent information I have is from Wednesday, December 30th, at which point we had received locally over 7,000 doses of vaccine. 3000 of the Pfizer and 4,400 of the Moderna. All the Pfizer vaccines have been given. The IU Health is giving over 500 shots a day at their facility downtown, and people are getting their schedule for that. We've had firefighters getting. Of course, it's focused on frontline workers, healthcare workers right now, and that will continue.
We will update the community regularly on how many vaccine doses we've received, and how many have been given to the public as we do. We'll also keep you informed about who is prioritized in group 1A, 1B, 1C, 2A, etc., as we try following the public health guidelines set by the state. To make sure that we get the vaccines to those who need them most, who can do the best to help knock down this pandemic. So watch out for that. Again, know that more than 500 shots a day are happening right in our community, and we'll continue to keep you updated about that. That is ultimately how we're going to knockdown. This pandemic is getting most of us vaccinated.
Please when it's your turn, do get vaccinated. I will get vaccinated when it's my turn. And that's how we're going to knock this down. In the meantime, pay attention to the news, keep watching for what's coming at us. We do very much hope that 2021 will be the year that we can get everyone vaccinated, and stem the tide on this. In the meantime, though, again, be careful. Take care of each other by wearing a mask, physically distancing, washing hands. Don't go to work if you're sick. Don't share air with people not in your household.
So, welcome to 2021. We turned the page to a new year. We still have a lot of the same challenges, and we can talk more about those. If you have questions, reach out. But the vaccine is here. That's two of them are here. That's a very good thing. We're getting hundreds of people vaccinated every day, and that's a very good thing. So keep plugging, hang in there. Keep taking care of yourself and our community the way you do, and I'll be giving you updates regularly.
