PCCLD employees are doing a good job getting vaccinated against the dangerous Coronavirus. Currently, about 80% of employees have started or completed vaccination. This is important as we strive to return to normal.
Vaccination is a key community issue now with spread of the virus continuing to be a problem locally with COVID-19 case rates and hospitalizations spiking again.
The good news is the COVID-19 vaccines work. Older people had early priority access to the vaccines and their proportion of reported new cases has recently declined in a marked fashion. In addition, a new study from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) shows that counties in Colorado with increased vaccine uptake are experiencing significantly lower case rates. Unfortunately, the CDPHE data demonstrates that Pueblo's vaccination rate is nearly the lowest in the state among the ten most populated counties while our infection rate is among the highest. CDPHE draws a correlation between these two data points and, also, shows that other more heavily populated counties have higher vaccination rates and correspondingly lower numbers of infections.
It is a problem that Pueblo County residents’ uptake of COVID-19 vaccines is lower. This results in more health problems locally and a longer, more arduous climb back to normal.
Now is the time for PCCLD to focus attention to help more Pueblo citizens gain access to the vaccine against the deadly virus. Convenient entrée to vaccination is a known barrier and PCCLD can help with this. One way is using libraries as sites for vaccination clinics. A pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic took place last week at the Rawlings Library and advance planning is underway now to host upcoming clinics at other PCCLD libraries as well as more at Rawlings. These clinics will be open to everyone, including, but not limited to, library staff. The vaccine is free and the mobile clinics are operated with a high level of medical professionalism. More information about these upcoming clinics is forthcoming soon.
A reminder, too, there is an ongoing vaccination site at Pueblo’s Colorado State Fairgrounds open daily from 8am until 6pm. More information about this is available here: https://www.centura.org/covid-19/covid-19-vaccine-information/vaccine-events.
Jon Walker
Executive Director
