County considered COVID hot spot

Laclede County is currently seeing a spike in COVID-19 cases, but the vaccination rate is proceeding at a slow pace, according to Laclede County Health Department Administrator Charla Baker. “It’s not increasing as we would like to see it, we would like more people to consider checking into the vaccine,” she said. Laclede County’s current level of community transmission of the virus is considered high, according to the Center for Disease Control COVID Data Tracker website. The Missouri Hospital Association also says Laclede County is currently considered a hot spot for COVID-19. “We did have a period of time, several weeks, where the cases were relatively low, but over the last three to four weeks now, we’ve really seen some higher numbers coming in,” Baker said. For more on this story see Wednesday's LCR.