Letter: Hamilton County vaccination rates high

Hamilton County government is an entity that sometimes gets overlooked in our county. I once had a conversation with one of our county mayors who referred to county government as the back-of-the-house restaurant function that is vital to the business, but customers do not always see.

Some of the most important functions that serve all county citizens are done on the county level. From judicial services, the Sheriff’s Office, to our award-winning Parks Department, work is done every day to serve our constituents. In the past year alone, we put a business-aid program in place for locally owned small businesses that were forced to close due to the pandemic, started the groundwork to build a shelter for domestic violence victims, received the only AAA bond rating for a county government in Indiana, and will be engaging in performance audits of all departments to ensure that we are spending taxpayer dollars as efficiently as possible.

While all this is vital, it pales in comparison to the work done by some of our pandemic leaders in Hamilton County government.

When the pandemic started, our Emergency Management Department and Health Department moved quickly and decisively. Numerous volunteers were recruited and trained. Mass vaccination sites were opened at Riverview Hospital and the Hamilton County Fairgrounds. When I received the vaccine at Riverview Hospital it was a well-organized and flawless process from start to finish.

As a result of all this hard work, 218,000 Hamilton County residents—or 77%—had been fully vaccinated as of Sept. 14. Because of these high vaccination numbers, counties surrounding Hamilton are seeing much higher infection rates than we are.

With this type of success, some politicians will try and take credit for other people’s accomplishments. Personally, I would like to thank our leaders that work behind the scenes. Our Hamilton County pandemic leaders from the Hamilton County Health Department, Hamilton County Emergency Management and every other county government official that put in the work. Hats off to you and God bless.

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Fred Glynn
Hamilton County councilor