(WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind.) – Governor Holcomb says Indiana needs to keep “beating the drum” for COVID-19 vaccinations.
Indiana is vaccinating about 5,300 Hoosiers a day, the fewest since December, when the vaccine had been out for barely a week and was available only to health care workers and first responders. For the last three weeks, booster shots for those already vaccinated have outnumbered new vaccinations.
Governor Holcomb says it “pains” him that many of those who are belatedly getting vaccinated were convinced because a family member died of COVID-19. He notes unvaccinated Hoosiers have consistently represented 90% or more of those hospitalized by the virus.
Holcomb says the state doesn’t plan any change in course to push the numbers up again. The Indiana Department of Health will continue hosting mobile vaccination clinics — the health department is encamped across the street from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway all month to administer both the COVID vaccine. And Holcomb says the state will continue to emphasize the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.
Holcomb has supported employers who require their workers to get vaccinated, but has ruled out having the state require it. And he’s criticized President Biden’s federal mandate to all businesses with more than 100 employees to require the vaccine. That order is expected to be finalized by year’s end.
Holcomb has said ordering people to get vaccinated shouldn’t be the state’s role. He says the state should instead do all it can to encourage people “to get to that right answer” by giving them the facts about the vaccine.
“It’s out of compassion that we appeal to folks before they’re motivated by some adverse circumstance in their families,” Holcomb says.
New infections have been dropping over the last month, but the state is still averaging about 2,200 new cases and 17 deaths a day. That’s 11 times the caseload at the pandemic’s low point in June, before the Delta variant took hold.
