Page last updated on September 7, 2021 at 1:15 pm
Hello. It's Mayor John Hamilton. It's Monday, July 12th, 2021, just a quick public report on the pandemic and things COVID-related. Hope you had a good 4th of July weekend. We did not have this report last weekend due to the holiday, but it's kind of that phrase, stay humble about this virus. I have to say we are pleased to continue another week with no employees sick in our employment from COVID. The numbers in our county are okay.
They're going slightly in the wrong direction, but in the country, there's very significant concern about the direction of cases and hospitalizations with some very real hotspots and resurgences of the Delta variant now really rising. We're just not out of the woods. I feel like Groundhog Day in some ways with these reports. We're now in July of 2021. We're looking forward to the fall.
We've had many, many people vaccinated locally and across the country, but not enough. The fact that we don't have enough people vaccinated means we're still at risk. Surges are happening in places with very low vaccination numbers. We are still just over the 50% mark in our county in terms of those vaccinated.
We need to get much higher than that. The facts are these vaccines are very safe. They're very effective and they are how we get out of this pandemic. If we don't use the vaccines, we may not get out of the pandemic the way we need to and that we all want to.
Almost everyone in the hospital, and there are still hundreds of people in the hospital in Indiana, almost everyone in the hospital for COVID is unvaccinated. Almost everyone who passes, who dies from COVID is unvaccinated, and almost no one who gets vaccinated has any serious illness. The vaccines are what protect us. They protect you and they protect your family. I thank all of you who've gotten vaccinated.
It's particularly our younger population that is not getting vaccinated. That's a bad decision, and it puts all of us at risk. I would encourage all of you to get vaccinated because our world will not return to the way we want it until that happens. We're going to continue to monitor this very carefully.
We'll be doing our press conferences every two weeks in July, but this is still a serious situation. Keep taking care of yourself. Masking is very important when you're not vaccinated, very important when you're not vaccinated, continuing to distance. We all want to get out of this. Vaccines are what do it. Most of the world is clamoring for more vaccines, just desperate to get vaccines.
We have plenty and they're free in the United States, and not enough of us are taking advantage of it to get it. It's an interesting and sad story. Please don't be part of that story. Please get vaccinated. We'll keep you posted on what we learn locally. Thanks.
