Five Points – Health Training Is Paying Off

by Wendell Lenhart
R-T Publisher
The foresight used by the Grundy County Health Department for several years to practice giving flu shots to large numbers of people appears to be paying great dividends.
For a number of years the department offered drive-through flu shots, which allowed several organizations to come together and coordinate giving innoculations to a majority of county residents.
Not only did it provide needed health care, it also allowed a way to test the ability to deliver shots and/or medicine to a large number of people in the case of an epidemic. I’m sure over the many times it was done, kinks were worked out and ways were discovered to make the delivery more efficient.
Well, lo and behold, here we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. And, two weeks ago, the GCHD and its partners, including Wright Memorial Hospital, were able to provide free COVID-19 testing for area residents using the basic design of delivery used for the county flu shots.
It is comforting to know the ability exists to deliver health care to a large number of area residents in a quick, safe and efficient manner.
And that ability is going to become even more important in the future when a vaccine that will prevent people from contracting COVID-19 becomes available. I’m glad we’re ready for that day and it can’t get here soon enough.
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Speaking of a vaccine for coronavirus, there are now at least 100 vaccines in the works with hope that one of them will be the one to combat COVID-19.
It’s important to keep in mind that most of the public thinks vaccines work like a light switch – you get the vaccination and you’re immune. Not all vaccines work that way.
For example, they have to guess every year how to configure the flu vaccine according to what strains are going to be most prevalent that year. If it protects 50 percent of the people from getting the flu that year, it’s considered a success.
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Quarantine has turned us into dogs. We roam the house all day looking for food. We are told “NO” if we get too close to strangers. And we get really excited about car rides.