McLean County Times

While McLean County hospitals are administering the COVID-19 vaccine as fast as possible, a county board member said the state is inconsistent.

“It’s not that the health department is moving slowly, or that any of our partner health providers are moving slowly, which I have seen on social media and the impression that people in the public have,” Health Committee Chairwoman Susan Schafer said during the Jan. 14 county board meeting, WGLT reported.

In McLean County, 4,600 vaccines have been administered, with 132 people already having both doses.

“We are giving it out as fast as we can get it, and if we got more, we would give more,” Schafer, who is also a member of the county health board, said, WGLT reported. “We are a week behind everybody.”

McLean County doesn’t get much-advanced notice about when new vaccine shipments are expected to arrive. Still, it did anticipate receiving 2,200 doses earlier this week.

McLean County Health Department Administrator Jessica McKnight said it wouldn’t be for a few more weeks until the county can move into the next phase of administering the vaccines, WGLT reported.

During the county board meeting, the Children’s Advocacy Center was also approved for lease space in McLean, Livingston and DeWitt counties.

“I, as a firm supporter of reproductive rights and comprehensive sexual education, I cannot in good conscience support this lease and payment to an organization that while at face value, looks like they support these things, they do anything but that,” Board member Sharon Chung said, WGLT reported.

Board member George Wendt also supported the lease.

“I think we’re getting into an area that’s really very divisive to start down this road,” Wendt said, WGLT reported. “It’s the economics of it, and it’s just getting kind of ridiculous to go down this road.”