Page last updated on September 7, 2021 at 1:41 pm
Hi, this is mayor John Hamilton, it's Monday, June 14th, 2021. Just wanted to give this quick update to the public about COVID and the pandemic, and what's going on.
We continue to improve, in the county and the state and the country, of course, aiming toward more and more vaccinations. That's a good thing. You know, the president has suggested a goal of getting to 70% of all adults in America with at least one shot by July 4th. That's a stretch goal, it's not clear we're going to make that. It's pretty clear Indiana is not going to make that because we're in one of the lower quarter of the states in terms of vaccination percentages, but it's a good goal and maybe we'll make it in Monroe County.
One signal of the progress we're making is the state average death rate, the rolling average of deaths is now as low as it's been since over a year ago at the beginning of the pandemic. At six deaths a day, that's still more than die in traffic accidents by a factor of two or three every day in Indiana. This is killing our people still, including we just confirmed one city employee we learned last week, confirmed died from COVID. So it's a very serious illness, it's still with us, but we are making progress. It is the vaccinations that are helping. They're keeping us safe. Please, if you have not gotten vaccinated, please do so. Talk to your healthcare provider. That's what keeps us and you safe.
99.6% of the people in the hospital today in Indiana for COVID are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people don't end up in the hospital, unvaccinated people do, and some of them die and it's avoidable. So please get a vaccine to protect yourself and your family and our community.
Thanks again to Indiana University and IU Health, both of whom are requiring vaccinations in their very large staff and student populations, as relevant. That will be a big help to our community. We're going to continue to monitor this as we go through the summer. We are still concerned, the professionals are concerned about what may happen in the fall. So the more of us that get vaccinated, the better. You can walk into any place, there are more than a dozen clinic locations in Monroe County, where you can walk in to get a shot. That's what keeps you safe, it's what keeps the rest of us safe.
So, that's the update for this week. We'll keep in touch with all other updates and thanks for your attention.
