With some pharmaceutical companies developing another round of booster COVID-19 vaccines, a local health expert gives his guidance. 

Guthrie County Health Services Director Jotham Arber says currently a COVID-19 booster shot should be for vulnerable individuals that includes the elderly and people with weak immune systems. 

“But those people who are not as vulnerable, younger folks or people, people who have strong immune systems, they may not recommend those boosters. Now, like I said, I could be wrong on that. They could come out and say, we need more and more boosters. But I just don’t see that being necessarily the way that it will end up.”

He believes that the county sits in a good place for COVID-19 immunity right now. 

“There is no reason to have everyone continue to be vaccinated all the time. If the current vaccination rates and the national prevalence of it are giving us a high enough immunity that we’re not seeing huge hospitalizations or deaths due to this virus.”

Arber states the county’s COVID-19 vaccination rate for the 18 and older population is 75 percent and for the most vulnerable population, the percentage  is in the mid 90s.