By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Buchanan County Presiding Commissioner Lee Sawyer is hopeful mass COVID-19 vaccinations will put the county over the hump in fighting the coronavirus pandemic.
Mosaic has begun vaccinating residents in Phase 1B, which includes those 65 or older and any adult considered high-risk due to their health condition.
Sawyer sees vaccinations as a game changer.
“I’m excited about it,” Sawyer tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “This could really help us get to that horizon we’ve been talking about with brighter days.”
It could take between 50-and-53,000 Buchanan County residents to be vaccinated for the county to reach herd immunity against the virus.
The state allocated Buchanan County $10.2 million from the CARES Act funding approved by Congress for Missouri.
Sawyer says it doesn’t appear the county will receive additional money even if Congress acts on a proposal by President Joe Biden for more COVID-19 funding.
“We have not seen anything that would indicate that we would be getting additional funding,” according to Sawyer. “We just don’t have anything that has shown that or we haven’t been able to get anything that would lead us to believe that we would be getting more.”
Sawyer says he is proud of how the County Commission worked to distribute the money provided it from the CARES Act. The state distributed the COVID-19 relief funds to counties based on their population. Sawyer says the commission made sure each school district in the county got funding, that businesses got some relief, among others.
“We did stuff with the city fire department, helping them. The police department, their emergency communications center, they didn’t have (an) ability to separate people with the way they were configured and so we were able to help with that,” Sawyer says.