Page last updated on September 7, 2021 at 1:37 pm
Hello, it's Mayor John Hamilton. It's Monday, April 5th, 2021. Just giving the community a quick update on COVID activities, facts. I just checked what I said last week, and I know I talked about the race between the vaccines on the one hand and the variants or the infections on the other.
This past week, we did not move in the right direction in that race. I am concerned. We continue to see rising caseloads in the area here and in the state. In fact, over the last month, the state's daily caseload average has gone up about a third from 750 at the low to over 1000 new cases. Our local caseload daily moving average has also gone up even more in the last month or so. These are in the wrong direction.
We do have vaccines happening, which is good; but in this race right now, the vaccine candidate is running behind because the pace of infections is increasing. That is concerning.
As I said last week, I believe it is very misguided for the State of Indiana to relax and get rid of a mask mandate at this moment. We're going in the wrong direction. I don't know if you saw what happened in Michigan. They've had a six-fold increase in the average daily cases over the last month. That's what we're really worried about is seeing a major increase like that. We're going in the wrong direction, but it's not that fast yet, but it's very concerning.
We have to be humble. We have to be careful. We have to keep doing the things we do we know work, with masking, with physical distancing, with good hygiene, and most of all with vaccinations. I'll get my second this week. I know thousands of people locally are doing that. We have to keep at it as quickly as we can to get as many people as we can vaccinated.
Please get the vaccine when you can. Make an appointment. If you have concerns about it, talk to your physician, your healthcare advisor. They're safe, they're effective, they're how we get out of this pandemic.
This week is a week of more caution, I'm sorry to say. We see the end of the tunnel, but the race right now is going in the wrong direction, and we need to manage it well. I hope we'll continue the tighter controls here locally that we have compared to the state, and we'll continue to monitor and keep you updated. There'll be a press conference on Friday afternoon as usual, and I'll be back in touch as I have news. And if not, before next week. Thanks a bunch. Be safe.
