Yorkville mayor, other leaders lobbying state reps for 20,000 vaccine doses

Kendall County falls to thirteenth highest vaccination rate in the state, state data shows

File photo: Yorkville Mayor John Purcell talks during a Feb. 25 City Council meeting at City Hall, 800 Game Farm Road in Yorkville.

Yorkville Mayor John Purcell called on local leaders to help make Kendall County the state’s leader in COVID-19 vaccinations at a city council meeting Tuesday night, Jan. 26.

As county health officials and elected leaders work to ready the county for an eventual mass vaccination campaign, Purcell said he and other officials had sent a letter to local state representatives and senators urging a shipment of 20,000 vaccine doses.

“I don’t know if we’ll get 20,000 but we need to be able to ramp up to that,” Purcell told the city council. “I’m confident that within a couple weeks we’ll have a system in place where we can handle 20K.”

So far, the health department has only been receiving shipments of hundreds of doses at a time for weeks as distribution lags nationally. Despite the slow roll-out, health officials are preparing for a mass vaccination site at Yorkville High School that could administer hundreds of shots in a day.

Kendall County fell to the thirteenth highest vaccination rate in the state after hovering in the top ten for multiple weeks, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health’s vaccine database.

In addition, Purcell said the Lynn Dubajic, head of Yorkville’s economic development corporation, will assist the health department in coordinating volunteers for the vaccination campaign.

“I’ve got a lot of people asking me how they can volunteer,” Purcell said. “People are just wanting to make this move. People are wanting to help.”