The first week of vaccinations in Guthrie County were very successful, with the Public Health Department reporting no severe allergic reactions requiring treatment.

But, Public Health Director Jotham Arber says while the vaccine is effective at preventing disease, people still need to follow safe health precautions to keep transmission rates low.

“The studies have not pointed to exactly how effective [the vaccine is] at keeping people from transmitting [COVID-19]. We want to make sure that while we’re vaccinating everybody and getting everybody the same level of disease prevention that we’re following those guidelines. We’re still social distancing. We’re still wearing those masks and doing all those things we’ve been doing. Now is the moment we need to make sure we’re still doing that because that will go very far in helping us overcome this thing.”

Arber says the longer the virus can circulate in the community, the more likely it is to mutate. He hopes that if everybody can continue following the guidelines that by summertime, people can get back to meeting in groups and releasing some of those guidelines.