By Blake Haas
BLOOMINGTON – Central Illinois Congressman Rodney Davis toured the mass vaccination site at Grossinger Motors Arena on Tuesday and called the visit ‘bittersweet.’
The Taylorville Republican, who represents the 13th District, encouraged people to get vaccinated while also calling on children to return to the classroom.
“It’s so essential to get the message out that everybody should take the opportunity to get vaccinated. If we want to get rid of these (masks), we want to be able to come back to a place like this, watch a game, play a game, then, we’re going to have to make sure that people get vaccinated, so policymakers like me and others at all levels of government are able to make the best decisions to reopen and get back to where we were a year ago.”
The site, which has a mix of 62 Army and Air National Guard members, hopes to vaccinate an average of 500 people a day.
“You know it’s kind of bittersweet,” Davis told WJBC News. “I’ll be honest with you. Because when you look at a facility like this, you want to see people here and to know for a year none of these chairs have been occupied close together like they have been in the past year. Now that we’ve been able to look back at a year, we see what this disease is much more about; we’ve been able to get statistics on the prevalence of the spread, groups, schools, and other businesses in other communities. Now let’s use that data to open our economy.”
Davis, who has been vaccinated, said he hopes lawmakers begin to look at plans to reopen the economy statewide.
Blake Haas can be reached at [email protected].
