By LESLIE EIKLEBERRY
Salina Post
Saline County’s mask mandate will remain in effect for at least two more weeks. That is the word of today’s Saline County Commission meeting.
During the meeting, Jason Tiller, Director of the Saline Council’s Health Department, told commissioners that the county’s COVID-19 data is going in the right direction.
“If you remember a point a few months ago, we were on average 128 cases in a few days, maybe if not more, and we have dropped considerably to where we had only 128 new cases in the past two weeks,” said Tiller.
A slide shown during Tiller’s presentation showed that the number of COVID-19 cases per month was the highest in December 1925. January dropped to 1,083 and February ended with 405.
Tiller said that while the number of new cases is decreasing, the health department is still seeing new cases in the county on a daily basis.
In addition, the number of deaths per month attributed to COVID-19 also peaked in December, at 47, said Tiller. Twenty-four people died of COVID-19 in January and five in February.
Tiller said that by the end of the week, more than 8,500 people living and working in Saline County should be vaccinated.
“In addition, by the end of the week, we should have about half of the more than 65 registered and probably most, if not all of the first respondents, K to 12, and vaccinated city and county, which will allow us to start vaccinating the rest of those who are eligible for Phase Two next week, “he said.
Tiller reported that Saline County will soon receive a shipment of the recently approved Johnson and Johnson single-dose vaccine.
“We were notified last night that we will receive 500 doses this week,” he said.
Tiller told commissioners that his recommendation is to continue the county mask’s mandate for now.
“It would be a much better position if we got to the point where we started to have periods of time without daily cases, and I think it will be a while yet,” said Tiller.
In addition, Tiller told the flight attendants about a YouTube video that was made to give those who have not yet been vaccinated an idea of what the vaccination site looks like in the old JC Penney store at the southern end of the Central Mall. The video was filmed with a drone from the Salina Police Department and assembled by Salina Media Connection. The tour guide is Hayley Samford, marketing and community outreach coordinator at Salina Family Healthcare Center.
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