Guthrie County Public Health is continuing its campaign of “75 by July.”

Public Health Director Jotham Arber says their goal is to get those Guthrie County residents who are eligible to get a COVID-19 vaccine to get at least 75-percent of residents fully vaccinated by July. However, Arber says the less vulnerable population to the virus has been slow, which has made them adjust how many doses of the vaccine they receive. 

Arber points out that last week, they declined their weekly allotment of 200 vaccine doses, but this week they accepted the full amount, due to scheduling some additional vaccine clinics. He further justifies how they continue to decide whether or not to receive their full allotment from the Iowa Department of Public Health.

“The smaller counties are kind of reaching a threshold and the next 10-15-percent of people that we need to get to is going to be a little harder to get to. And we don’t want to necessarily keep a lot of vaccines just sitting in refrigerators that could potentially expire. So it is a good call to not accept the full allotment if you don’t have those vaccine clinics scheduled or your not seeing a lot of those people come so that vaccine can be redistributed to where it needs to go where people are still needing to get that vaccine.”

As of Wednesday, Arber says 46-percent of the entire county is fully vaccinated. Additionally, 97-percent of those 65 and older have received at least one dose, 48-percent for 45-64, 28-percent for those 25-44 and 18-24 is 34-percent. To hear more from Arber, listen to today’s Let’s Talk Guthrie County program.