Kenton Hardin Health Board Conducts March Meeting

Communicable diseases served as the major talking point for the Kenton Hardin Health Board during their virtual meeting Tuesday night.

Around half of the meeting’s 55 minutes was devoted to the department’s plans for immunizations. Hardin County residents age 16 and older will be able to receive the Johnson + Johnson coronavirus vaccine without prescreening at the health department’s mass clinic Saturday. At Tuesday’s meeting, the board approved a rental agreement with the Hardin County Fairgrounds, which has served as a Point of Dispensing since the winter, through June 30. Also planned by the Kenton-Hardin Health Department are April immunization clinics for children at the department’s main office.

Following the rundown of each department within the board, the floor was given to epidemiologists Kate Wright and Mary Salimbene. Wright presented the numbers of communicable diseases diagnosed within Hardin County on a month-by-month basis, while Salimbene analyzed the total disease numbers for Hardin County in 2020. While the disease diagnoses dropped from 512 in January to 169 in February, 2020’s number of diagnoses, thanks to the pandemic, still marked an 806-percent increase over 2019’s.

The Kenton Hardin Health Board is next scheduled to meet Tuesday, April 27, beginning at five p.m. As access to coronavirus vaccines increases across the county, the board hopes to make their next meeting in-person.