Pennsylvania State Police say a Lancaster County attorney who was upset over election results loaded his vehicle with weapons and ammunition and tried to drive to Washington, D.C., to attack government officials.Kenelm Shirk III, an Ephrata lawyer and former Akron Borough solicitor, is charged with making terroristic threats.State police said Shirk, 71, was on his way to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21 with the intent to kill unnamed political leaders when he was arrested at a convenience store on Interstate 81 in Franklin County.Troopers said they searched his vehicle and found an assault rifle, two handguns and a large quantity of ammunition.Shirk lives in Cornwall Borough in Lebanon County. Cornwall police alerted state police to be on the lookout for Shirk after getting a tip that he had left his home after threatening to kill his wife and government officials. According to charging documents, Shirk said he would be “suicide by cop” if he met police along the way to Washington.
Pennsylvania State Police say a Lancaster County attorney who was upset over election results loaded his vehicle with weapons and ammunition and tried to drive to Washington, D.C., to attack government officials.
Kenelm Shirk III, an Ephrata lawyer and former Akron Borough solicitor, is charged with making terroristic threats.
State police said Shirk, 71, was on his way to Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21 with the intent to kill unnamed political leaders when he was arrested at a convenience store on Interstate 81 in Franklin County.
Troopers said they searched his vehicle and found an assault rifle, two handguns and a large quantity of ammunition.
Shirk lives in Cornwall Borough in Lebanon County. Cornwall police alerted state police to be on the lookout for Shirk after getting a tip that he had left his home after threatening to kill his wife and government officials. According to charging documents, Shirk said he would be “suicide by cop” if he met police along the way to Washington.
ROME — Mario Draghi, the former head of the European Central Bank who is largely credited with helping to save the euro, accepted a mandate from Italy’s president on Wednesday to try and form a new unity government that would guide the country out of the pandemic and through economic recovery.
“To overcome the pandemic, to complete the vaccine campaign, to offer answers to the daily problems of the citizens, to relaunch the country are the challenges we face,” Mr. Draghi said after meeting with President Sergio Mattarella for more than an hour at the Quirinal Palace.
Italy, he said, faced a “difficult moment.” And he said he had accepted Mr. Mattarella’s appeal because the emergency “requires an answer equal to the seriousness of the situation.”
Until as recently as Tuesday, the idea of Mr. Draghi replacing Giuseppe Conte as prime minister remained a pipe dream for the many Italians frustrated with a governing coalition that seemed paralyzed by ideological schisms and incompetence, especially as the coronavirus pandemic raged and economic devastation set in.
But on Tuesday evening, Mr. Mattarella summoned Mr. Draghi and appealed to “all the political forces in the Parliament” to support a “high profile government” to meet the historic moment.
He made it clear Mr. Conte’s tenure was over and the new players, potentially political leaders proposed by the parties supporting Mr. Draghi or an all-star cast of politically unaffiliated economists, judges and scientists, was ready to take the stage.
Italy’s stock market rallied on Wednesday in response to the news that Mr. Draghi had been lined up to lead the Italian government. He immediately began consultations with party leaders that will continue in the coming days in an effort to form a new Italian government.
“I am confident that from the exchange with the parties and the groups in the Parliament and from the dialogue with the social forces,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday, “there will emerge unity and the capacity to give a responsible answer to the president’s appeal.”
Mr. Draghi is himself no political novice. He has served in past Italian governments, was a director of Italy’s treasury and knows well the machinery of government at both the European and Italian level.
His name has been mentioned for years as a potential candidate to replace Mr. Mattarella as Italy’s head of state in 2022.But now Mr. Mattarella himself has called on Mr. Draghi, whom he has publicly praised in the past, and brought him directly into the fray.
“Now everyone of good will must heed the call of President Mattarella and support the government of Mario Draghi,” Matteo Renzi, the wily former prime minister who engineered the collapse of Mr. Conte’s government by pulling his small party’s support in Parliament. “Now is the time for sobriety.”
Party leaders on the right and left quickly expressed support for Mr. Draghi after it became clear that Mr. Mattarella would ask him to form a government.
Among them were leaders who had made great shows of their loyalty to Mr. Conte. Nicola Zingaretti, the leader of the Democratic Party that Mr. Renzi once led, released a statementthat on the one hand referred to the government crisis as a “disaster provoked by the irresponsible choice” of Mr. Renzi, but he then welcomed Mr. Mattarella’s decision. “We will stand ready to discuss the common good for the country.”
A government led by Mr. Draghi could emerge in two different ways. If he succeeds in finding broad parliamentary support, he could govern from a position of strength until the next scheduled elections in 2023.
If he fails to find sufficient political support, Mr. Mattarella could nevertheless make him the head of a transitional government with limited scope — probably focused on the vaccine rollout and managing more than 200 billion euros, or about $240 billion, in relief funds from Europe — before leading the country to early elections.
“We have available the extraordinary resources of the European Union,” Mr. Draghi said on Wednesday in a clear pro-European sign. “We have the chance to do a lot for our country with a careful eye to the future for young generations and to strengthen social unity.”
Mr. Mattarella explicitly said Tuesday evening that he had no interest in new elections. Neither does Mr. Renzi, who is polling at about 2 percent, or the Five Star Movement, which has the largest bloc in Parliament but would likely be decimated in elections by its nationalist opponents.
Leaders of Five Star initially expressed their opposition to Mr. Draghi, but on Wednesday, it became increasingly clear that that was far from a unified position within the party, which appeared to be breaking apart.
Even the political forces that had been clamoring for new elections had suddenly quieted down with the arrival of Mr. Draghi.
“We are a responsible party and we will not say no out of hand,” said Riccardo Molinari, a member of Parliament from the nationalist League party led by Matteo Salvini, who polls suggested would benefit most from early elections.
But Mr. Salvini also needs to protect his right flank. If he is seen as too amenable to Mr. Draghi, who is the personification of the European Union that Mr. Salvini has railed against for years, other right-wing politicians are eager to take his place.
“I don’t think that the solution to the nation’s serious health, economic and social problems is yet another government born in the palace,” Giorgia Meloni, the leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party, wrote on Twitter. “We instead think that it is definitely better to give Italians the possibility to vote.”
In one fell swoop, Mr. Mattarella’s move to bring in Mr. Draghi has the potential to reset Italian politics, which many commentators lamented was not up to the task of governing in a national emergency.
“To think that the most anti-European parliament in the history of Italy could crown Draghi as prime minister today and head of state tomorrow gives a sense of the miracle Sergio Mattarella pulled off in these years,” Claudio Cerasa, the editor of Il Foglio newspaper, wrote on Wednesday.
The leader of the Proud Boys, who was arrested in Washington shortly before the Capitol riot, previously worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012, court documents show.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio helped law enforcement in a variety of investigations nearly a decade ago by providing information and going undercover, the records show.
The Proud Boys is a far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies and was a major agitator during earlier protests and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The Proud Boys have railed against a “deep state” and work to break down the current government system, and so the revelations of Tarrio as a federal informant came as quite a surprise.
The details of Tarrio’s cooperation, which was first reported Wednesday by Reuters, were found in a transcript of a 2014 hearing in federal court in Florida regarding his sentence for participating in a scheme involving the resale of diabetic test strips.
The prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney both cited Tarrio’s extensive cooperation in arguing that his sentence of 30 months should be cut. The judge agreed to reduce his sentence to 16 months, the records show.
“Your Honor, frankly, in all the years, which is now more than 30 that I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had a client as prolific in terms of cooperating in any respect,” said Tarrio’s lawyer at the time, Jeffrey Feiler, according to the transcript.
An email seeking comment was not immediately returned from a lawyer representing Tarrio in his current case. In an interview with Reuters, Tarrio denied ever cooperating with authorities.
After Tarrio’s 2012 indictment, he helped the government prosecute more than a dozen other people, the federal prosecutor told the judge, according to the transcript. Tarrio’s lawyer said he was the first defendant to cooperate in the case and was also involved in a variety of police undercover operations involving things like anabolic steroids and prescription narcotics.
“From day one, he was the one who wanted to talk to law enforcement, wanted to clear his name, wanted to straighten this out so that he could move on with his life. And he has in fact cooperated in a significant way,” the prosecutor said, according to the transcript.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington on Jan. 4, two days before the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a bid to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
He was accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during an earlier protest in the nation’s capital. The banner was ripped from Asbury United Methodist Church property, torn and set aflame in December.
Tarrio was seen with the sign in video of the incident posted on YouTube, according to a police report. When police pulled Tarrio over, officers found two unloaded magazines emblazoned with the Proud Boys logo in his bag that had a capacity of 30 rounds each, authorities said.
___
Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporter Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.
The leader of the Proud Boys, who was arrested in Washington shortly before the Capitol riot, previously worked undercover and cooperated with investigators after he was accused of fraud in 2012, court documents show.
Henry “Enrique” Tarrio helped law enforcement in a variety of investigations nearly a decade ago by providing information and going undercover, the records show.
The Proud Boys is a far-right, male chauvinist extremist group that seized on the Trump administration’s policies and was a major agitator during earlier protests and the Capitol riot on Jan. 6. The Proud Boys have railed against a “deep state” and work to break down the current government system, and so the revelations of Tarrio as a federal informant came as quite a surprise.
The details of Tarrio’s cooperation, which was first reported Wednesday by Reuters, were found in a transcript of a 2014 hearing in federal court in Florida regarding his sentence for participating in a scheme involving the resale of diabetic test strips.
The prosecutor and Tarrio’s defense attorney both cited Tarrio’s extensive cooperation in arguing that his sentence of 30 months should be cut. The judge agreed to reduce his sentence to 16 months, the records show.
“Your Honor, frankly, in all the years, which is now more than 30 that I’ve been doing this, I’ve never had a client as prolific in terms of cooperating in any respect,” said Tarrio’s lawyer at the time, Jeffrey Feiler, according to the transcript.
An email seeking comment was not immediately returned from a lawyer representing Tarrio in his current case. In an interview with Reuters, Tarrio denied ever cooperating with authorities.
After Tarrio’s 2012 indictment, he helped the government prosecute more than a dozen other people, the federal prosecutor told the judge, according to the transcript. Tarrio’s lawyer said he was the first defendant to cooperate in the case and was also involved in a variety of police undercover operations involving things like anabolic steroids and prescription narcotics.
“From day one, he was the one who wanted to talk to law enforcement, wanted to clear his name, wanted to straighten this out so that he could move on with his life. And he has in fact cooperated in a significant way,” the prosecutor said, according to the transcript.
Tarrio was arrested in Washington on Jan. 4, two days before the pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol in a bid to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory.
He was accused of vandalizing a Black Lives Matter banner at a historic Black church during an earlier protest in the nation’s capital. The banner was ripped from Asbury United Methodist Church property, torn and set aflame in December.
Tarrio was seen with the sign in video of the incident posted on YouTube, according to a police report. When police pulled Tarrio over, officers found two unloaded magazines emblazoned with the Proud Boys logo in his bag that had a capacity of 30 rounds each, authorities said.
___
Richer reported from Boston. Associated Press reporter Curt Anderson in St. Petersburg, Florida, contributed to this report.
Estonia’s new prime minister has promised to restore the Baltic nation’s reputation, after two turbulent years in which a far-right party was part of the country’s government.
“We will again build our relations with our allies, our neighbours, and we will try to restore our name as a good country to invest in,” Kaja Kallas told Reuters in Tallinn on Tuesday, after taking her oath of office.
The 43-year-old Kallas becomes the country’s first female prime minister since Estonia regained independence in 1991. The Reform Party, which she leads, won the most votes in a 2019 general election, but was unable to form a government, as the rival Centre Party instead looked to the far-right EKRE and another right-wing party to form a controversial coalition, with Centre’s Juri Ratas as prime minister.
That coalition was always fragile, and was repeatedly rocked by far-right rhetoric used by EKRE government members. In 2019, EKRE MP Ruuben Kaalep told the Guardian that the party’s agenda was to fight against “native replacement”, “the LGBT agenda” and “leftist global ideological hegemony”.
In December that year, the Estonian president Kersti Kaljulaid apologised to Finland, after interior minister Mart Helme, the EKRE leader, mocked Finland’s newly elected prime minister Sanna Marin as a “sales girl”.
Last year, Kaljulaid convened the country’s security council to discuss remarks by Helme calling the then-US presidential nominee Joe Biden “corrupt”. She said the remarks could put Estonia’s alliances under threat.
In the end, the Ratas government was felled not by EKRE’s rhetoric but by a corruption scandal. He resigned earlier in January, and a new coalition was formed between the Centre and Reform parties, with seven cabinet posts each and Kallas as prime minister. The new cabinet will be in office for two years before a new election is due in spring 2023.
Kallas, a former lawyer and MEP, is the daughter of Sim Kallas, who founded the Reform Party and was prime minister in 2002-2003. She said gender balance was an important factor in the new cabinet, with numerous women appointed to key positions, including the finance and foreign ministers.
Estonia is now one of just a few countries where both the head of state and of government are women, though president Kaljulaid’s five-year term will come to an end this year, and she has not yet announced whether she will seek another term.
WASHINGTON – The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Sunday that the federal government does not know how much coronavirus vaccine the nation has, a complication that adds to the already herculean task before the Biden administration.
“I can’t tell you how much vaccine we have, and if I can’t tell it to you then I can’t tell it to the governors and I can’t tell it to the state health officials,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky told “Fox News Sunday.”
“If they don’t know how much vaccine they’re getting not just this week but next week and the week after they can’t plan. They can’t figure out how many sites to roll out, they can’t figure out how many vaccinators that they need, and they can’t figure out how many appointments to make for the public,” Walensky said.
In a dig at the Trump administration, Walensky said the lack of knowledge of vaccine supply is indicative of “the challenges we’ve been left with.”
Read more: Biden surgeon general pick says U.S. racing to adapt against new Covid strains
President Joe Biden has set a goal to administer 100 million Covid-19 vaccine shots within his first 100 days. The Biden administration has been repeatedly pressed on whether that target is ambitious enough given the severity of the pandemic.
Walensky acknowledged that the U.S. must vaccinate people faster, but she said the nation faces supply constraints. Production will increase after the first 100 days, Walensky said, and the expected introduction of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine will also help ease supply problems.
“We are really hoping that we’ll have more vaccines and that will increase the pace at which we can do the vaccinations,” Walensky said.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain said the nation also faces distribution problems because the Trump administration, which started the program, did not have a clear plan.
“The process of distributing the vaccine, particularly outside of nursing homes and hospitals, out into the community as a whole did not really exist when we came into the White House,” Klain told MSNBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“So, the process of getting that vaccine into arms, that’s the hard process, that’s where we are behind as a country and that’s where we are focused in the Biden administration on getting that ramped up,” he added.
White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci, who served in the Trump administration, said Sunday the Biden target of 100 million doses in 100 days is not a final number.
“It is really a floor and not a ceiling,” Fauci told CBS’ “Face The Nation”. “It is going to be a challenge. I think it was a reasonable goal that was set. We always want to do better than the goal that you’ve set.”
Those 100 million injections will cover about 67 million people, Fauci said, some of whom will have received the required two doses while others will have received only one dose. So far, the U.S. has administered nearly 22 million doses, far below federal targets.
The need to vaccinate as many people as possible has taken on new urgency as the coronavirus mutates. Fauci said the Covid-19 vaccines currently on the market may not be as effective against new strains.
Biden’s surgeon general pick stressed on Sunday the U.S. is in a race to adapt against the new variants.
“The virus is basically telling us that it’s going to continue to change and we’ve got to be ready for it,” Dr. Vivek Murthy said during an interview with ABC News’ “This Week.”
“So the bottom line is, we’re in a race against these variants, the virus is going to change and it’s up to us to adapt and to make sure that we’re staying ahead,” Murthy said.
When asked if the U.S. is in a race against time before a Covid variant emerges that renders the vaccines ineffective, Walensky said Americans need to get inoculated when they have the opportunity and adhere to mitigation strategies to deny the virus opportunity to circulate.
“I would say we’ve been in a race all along,” Walensky said. “The more virus that is out there, the more virus that is replicating, the more likely that we are going to have mutations and variants.”
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Both New York City and New York state have run completely dry of covid vaccines with the next shipment not expected until early next week.
The news comes as more and more hospitals cancel vaccination appointments with no new appointments scheduled through Monday.
15 vaccine centers have also closed.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo is blaming the now-former Trump administration for opening up too many categories of eligibility, without increasing supply.
“It should have been opened as you had allocation. Anyway, that is not what we did, it’s not what they did. And now you have a period of confusion and anxiety because you’re trying to hit seven million people at 250,000 a week,” Cuomo said.
Another quarter-million doses will arrive in time for next week, but state officials say that’s far from enough.
Some have suggested using second doses, which are in storage, as first doses.
During a visit to a COVID-19 vaccine pop-up site at a NYCHA complex in Brooklyn Saturday, Cuomo said that would only be possible with collaboration from the federal government.
“The reason why the federal government has to agree is because they have to agree that they’re then going to send you enough second doses in the future. Otherwise, you want them giving people first dosages and then you don’t have a second dosage for them,” Cuomo said.
Health experts say administering the second dose of the vaccine within the timeframe outlined by federal guidelines is critical to ensuring long-term protection.
So far more than one million people in the state have gotten their first dose of the vaccine.
At a Friday briefing, Cuomo said deliveries of the week six allocations, about 250,400 doses, are on the way, but those deliveries “are delivered by the federal government by various means and they arrive at different times throughout the week.”
The state is able to administer about 80,000 doses per day and could easily do 100,000 per day, Cuomo said.
“The moment the vaccines arrive, our goal is to get them in arms as soon as possible. 250,400 doses per week is not enough,” Cuomo said.
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Stock image. | Photo by Nature/iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. George News
ST. GEORGE — The first weekend of COVID-19 vaccination appointments being opened up for local residents ages 70 and oldersaw all reservation slots for the rest of the month fill quickly. Due to technical glitches, some residents expressed frustration with trying to get inoculated against the virus that has infected 23,300 and killed 191 people locally since March, including a record-high five people announced Thursday.
Stock photo. | Photo by Arindam Ghosh/iStock/Getty Images Plus, St. George News
The spokesman for the local health department said the problem has not been a lack of manpower or a lack of capabilities – it has been a lack of supply.
Spokesperson David Heaton said the Southwest Utah Public Health Department has been receiving 2,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. That supply is not just for the approximately 35,000 people locally who are 70 and older, but for school staff, first responders and non-hospital medical personnel who also qualify right now for the vaccine in Utah.
“At this rate, it would take two months to get people in this group vaccinated. So when the state asked us what help we need, there’s only one answer: We need more vaccines,” Heaton said, adding that the department has an abundance of manpower that could handle a large influx of vaccine supply on day one. “We have staff trained to handle this. We have the staff to do 2,000 a day.”
The wish for more vaccines may have been granted Thursday.
On the second day of his administration, President Joe Biden signed an emergency order Thursday to boost COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution. The order, announced on the one-year anniversary of when the first COVID-19 case was detected in the U. S., is part of a 200-page COVID-19 plan released by the White House.
The order activated the Defense Production Act – the same act used during World War II to boost wartime production – to drastically increase production of both the vaccines as well as the equipment like syringes to administer them.
In this May 2017 file photo, then former Vice President Joe Biden speaks at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass. June 1, 2017 | Steven Senne/Associated Press/St. George News
The plan calls for 100 million Americans to receive their first dose of the vaccine by May 1. According to the Associated Press, 12.3 million Americans have been vaccinated since late December.
As of Thursday, the Utah Department of Health says 12,887 people in Southern Utah have received their first dose of the vaccine, while 487 people have received their second dose to be fully inoculated. There have 173,587 first doses in the state as a whole.
The more federally-based Biden strategy on COVID-19 vaccine distribution differs from the strategy of the administration of President Donald Trump, which focused on each state relying on its own vaccine policies and distribution. During the recording of the PBS Utah Monthly Governor’s Press Conference Thursday, Gov. Spencer Cox said he welcomed the federal initiative.
“We are excited about this announcement. I’ve just perused through it, but it’s a good thing,” Cox said. “They’re doing the same thing we’ve been doing here with our local health departments.”
Cox gave particular praise to the president’s change to provide 100% federal reimbursement for emergency COVID-19 supplies and the use of national guardsmen to administer COVID-19 tests and vaccines. Until now, the state has had to foot 25% of the bill.
Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox, right, arrives for a COVID-19 briefing at the Utah State Capitol. Jan. 8, 2021, Salt Lake City, Utah | Photo by Jeffrey D. Allred/Deseret News/Associated Press, St. George News
Cox defended his order earlier in the month that local health districts use up their vaccine supply within seven days. He said the only alternative to that was a slower rollout that would have left vaccine supply sitting in freezers and refrigerators.
“I had to choose between two problems. Either doses sitting on shelves or a crush of people,” Cox said, adding a slower approach would have left the possibility of vaccine sitting unused for too long and needing to be thrown away – something that has been experienced in other states. “I would rather be struck trying to get it than it being thrown away.”
Large vaccination clinic in the plans locally
Another part of the White House vaccine plan is for the creation of larger, mass COVID-19 vaccination clinics nationwide. Some cities are already utilizing stadiums and convention centers to inoculate large amounts of people at once.
A patient receives a flu vaccination from their car at an annual flu shootout, date and location not specified | Photo courtesy of the Southwest Utah Public Health Department, St. George News
Heaton said the Southwest Utah Public Health Department already has a plan to have such a mass clinic and use last September’s flu vaccination “shootout” at the fairgrounds in Washington County Regional Park as a dry run.
“Our flu shootout was in preparation for the vaccine rollout, but the vaccine supply has been more of a trickle so that was scaled down to our offices,” Heaton said, adding that if the supply comes in, they have the staff to immediately move to much larger COVID-19 vaccination clinics. “We’re prepared to do that. We’ve never reached our limit.”
Until the federal reinforcement of vaccine supply arrives, there’s the matter of dealing with the present high-demand, low-supply status of getting people inoculated locally against the virus.
Heaton said Southern Utah has a unique problem compared to the rest of the state, which has a younger demographic.
“The fact is our older demographic is higher than other counties in the state, Heaton said.
A woman named Elizabeth receives COVID-19 vaccination shot from a nurse at the Southwest Utah Public Health Department offices in Cedar City, Utah, Jan. 12, 2021 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News
Heaton said one issue the department thinks it has fixed is its technical ones, which caused their website to go down several times during vaccination sign-ups earlier this week. The state has provided some aid in this matter.
“Our hosting service made some mistakes so that was confusing,” Heaton said. “We are now hosted by Utah state service which should be robust.”
The reservation slots – for at least the first week of February and possibly the second – are expected to go online through SignUpGenius at 9 a.m. Monday. At the same time, residents will also be able to utilize a hotline at 435-986-2549, though the department said it prefers that people try signing up online first.
“It will be a rush, but hopefully the website will be able to handle it a lot better,” Heaton said.
Second doses get their own place in line
While most Southern Utahns still await getting their first shot of the vaccine, the time is coming up for those that received the vaccine when it was first rolled out to receive the second of two COVID-19 vaccine shots.
Two of the COVID-19 vaccines are seen at Dixie Regional Medical Center in St. George, Utah, on Dec. 16, 2020. | Photo courtesy of Intermountain Healthcare, St. George News
On Thursday, the local health department announced they will not have to compete with the already high demand of others for reservation slots. The Southwest Utah Public Health Department will be holding separate second-shot clinics.
“We’re looking at doing second-dose clinics separately so people may be relieved that they won’t have to compete for slots with those getting their first shots,” Heaton said.
The move comes after the governor announced that like the first doses, the second-dose supply will need to be used within seven days by a local health department or it will go back into the vaccine supply chain.
Second-doses will utilize the same SignUpGenius online form as the first-injection clinics and are also going online Monday.
And like the first-dose clinics, reservation slots may go quicker than the hottest toy of the season on Black Friday. However, Heaton and other health experts say that while a person has to wait 28 days before their second dose, they don’t have to get that second injection on the 28th day.
“There’s not a maximum waiting period so if you can’t get it on the 28th day, you have some leeway,” he said.
Getting the COVID-19 Vaccine
Those who can currently get the vaccine: Everyone ages 70 and over. K-12 teachers and staff, those that work in nonhospital health care facilities (those in clinics, pharmacies, dentists or other medical offices) and first responders, including law enforcement, firefighters and EMTs.
Must register in advance online for an appointment time. Walk-ins will not be accepted.
Must have a personal ID, employment ID (if necessary) and wear a short-sleeve shirt at appointment.
Must get the vaccine in the county you reside in. Proof of residency is required. Part-time residents can get vaccinated with proof of residency.
Vaccines are free of charge.
Those without email addresses or unable to make reservations online can get help at a specialized hotline at 435-986-2549.
Washington County:
Where: Southwest Utah Public Health Department St. George office, 620 S 400 East, 2nd Floor Conference Room, St. George, 84770
When: First dose Jan. 29 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Feb. 4 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m; Second dose Feb. 1 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Feb. 3 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
First dose Jan. 29 click to register (opening up Monday)
First dose Feb. 4 click to register (opening up Monday)
Second dose Feb. 1 click to register (opening up Monday)
Second dose Feb. 3 click to register (opening up Monday)
Iron County:
Where: Southwest Utah Public Health Department Cedar City office, 260 DL Sargent Dr., Cedar City, 84721.
When: First dose Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (full), Feb. 2 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m.; Second dose Feb. 3 9 a.m. to 4:15 p.m; K-12 teachers and staff-only clinic Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. (full).
First dose click to register (opening up Monday)
Second dose click to register (opening up Monday)
Kane County:
Where: Southwest Utah Public Health Department Kanab office, 445 N. Main St., Kanab 84741.
When: To be announced
Click to register
Garfield County:
Where: Southwest Utah Public Health Department Panguitch office, 601 Center St. Panguitch 84759.
When: To be announced
Click to register (opening up Monday)
Beaver County:
Where: Southwest Utah Public Health Department Beaver Office, 75 1175 North, Beaver 84713.
When: To be announced
(All slots full) Click to register
COVID-19 information resources
St. George News has made every effort to ensure the information in this story is accurate at the time it was written. However, as the situation and science surrounding the coronavirus continues to evolve, it’s possible that some data has changed.
Check the resources below for up-to-date information and resources.
Southern Utah coronavirus count (as of Jan. 15, 2020, seven-day average in parentheses)
Positive COVID-19 tests: 22,355 (199.1 new infections per day in seven days, falling since Jan. 14)
Washington County: 17,129 (135 per day, falling)
Iron County: 3,988 (53.6 per day, falling)
Kane County: 378 (3 per day, falling)
Garfield County: 378 (2.1 per day, falling)
Beaver County: 482 (5.2 per day, falling)
New infections for major Southern Utah cities (numbers released ahead of Southern Utah numbers):
St. George: 68 (falling)
Washington City: 23 (rising)
Hurricane/LaVerkin: 14 (rising)
Ivins City/Santa Clara: 11 (rising)
Cedar City: 40 (falling)
Deaths: 191 (2.9 per day, falling)
Washington County: 155 (11 new since last report: Hospitalized female 65-84, hospitalized male 65-84, long-term care female over 85, hospitalized female 65-84, hospitalized male 65-84, female 45-64 at home, hospitalized male 65-84, long-term care male over 84, long-term care female 65-84, long-term care male 65-84, long-term care male 65-84)
Iron County: 20 (1 new: Long-term care female 65-84)
Garfield County: 9 (2 new: Long-term care female over 85, long-term care male 65-84)
Number of initial vaccine injections in Southern Utah: 12,887
Number of fully vaccinated in Southern Utah: 487
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2021, all rights reserved.
Chris Reed serves as weekend editor and reporter for St. George News. He has steadily moved east after growing up among the Valley girls of Southern California’s San Fernando Valley. He graduated from Cal State Northridge before spending a decade in Las Vegas. As a sports reporter and editor, he once compared shoe sizes with Shaq. As a news reporter and editor, he has covered parades, triumphs and tragedies. He also once got close to the stars doing publicity for a space module builder. He came to St. George for love and has grown to love the community. He is the proud father of two boys, his youngest a champion against both autism and Type 1 diabetes.
