BY JUSTIN SABATA
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The COVID-19 situation in Ellis County has improved greatly from a month ago. COVID vaccines were administered this week to medical staff and the average new cases per day have decreased from 45 cases per day last month to nine cases per day as of Wednesday.
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There were eight hospitalizations reported by the Ellis County Health Department<\/a>, contrasting from the 15+ reported a few weeks ago. Ellis County Director of Health Services, Jason Kennedy, gave his COVID update during Monday\u2019s county commission meeting. \u201cThings are improving in Ellis County and the vaccine is finally here,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cThis is good news and it\u2019s also a time for us to, maybe, all reflect on our personal decisions as we move through it – there is an end in sight to this pandemic.\u201d Three Ellis County residents have passed away due to the virus since Monday. According to the KDHE<\/a>, over 2,500 Kansans have died due to COVID since the pandemic began. \u201cWe need people to still make good decisions now,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cObviously, until you\u2019ve received a vaccine, you\u2019re still at the same risk as you were prior to.\u201d Kennedy also reported that the county will be short of the amount of vaccinations for Phase 1a of the Center for Disease Control\u2019s \u201cPhased Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccines<\/a>.\u201d This phase involves medical personnel and residents in long-term care facilities. \u201cWe will still be short of that quantity,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cAnd we will remain short of that probably for some time.\u201d Ellis County is currently prioritizing the vaccine to health care workers such as hospital staff. \u201cThe long-term cares (care facilities) and the skilled nursing facilities are handled through a separate private contract through the federal government,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWith private pharmacies handling that side of it.\u201d As reported by Kennedy, some healthcare workers in Ellis County have not yet requested a COVID vaccination. The health director also reported that the vaccine will not be mandated to medical staff. Other areas in the state like Kansas City have also declined mandatory vaccinations for their healthcare workers. \u201cAs we\u2019ve talked before, I will not mandate the vaccination as an employer,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cBut, we\u2019ve educated, we\u2019ve provided them with the best data we have with guidance, and allowed them to make an informed decision on what they want to do with it.\u201d The Ellis County Commission will meet again January 4. The meetings can be viewed on the county\u2019s YouTube<\/a> and Facebook<\/a> pages. Information on COVID-19 in Ellis County<\/a> is updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by the ECHD. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY JUSTIN SABATA The COVID-19 situation in Ellis County has improved greatly from a month ago. COVID vaccines were administered this week to medical staff… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":56078,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,13675,11],"tags":[1759,468,5502,13801,12479],"class_list":["post-57842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-coronavirus","category-news","tag-ellis-county","tag-ellis-county-health-department","tag-ellis-county-ks","tag-jason-kennedy","tag-justin-sabata"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/covid-ellis-county-logo.png?fit=1308%2C874&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57842"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57844,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57842\/revisions\/57844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/56078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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