County Transitioning to Next Phase of Vaccination

By Travis Volz

As the Covid vaccination program moves from Phase 1A to Phase 1B in the coming days, Washington County Health Department Administrator Elizabeth Lehde knows that she has a lot of work ahead of her.

The initial roll out of the vaccination program included frontline medical personnel and the most vulnerable populations. Transitioning to vaccinating the much larger pool of people in Phase 1B has no shortage of challenges.

“We’ve been taking names of people who fall into Phase 1B for several weeks, and we already have 1,300 names,” Lehde said. “With the amount of vaccines we’ve received, it’s going to make it a slow process.”

Phase 1B, which is based on the Illinois COVID Vaccination Plan 4.1, opens up vaccinations to people 65 and older, as well as essential workers including postal service employees, education employees, grocery employees, among others.

Read the full article in this week’s issue.