* Greene County (pop. 13,886) got a shout-out from Gov. Pritzker today for its vaccination success…

We’ve taken very seriously the direction of local public health departments and the needs that they have. We’ve provided some grants, we’ve tried to offer any help that we can at… the state level. We can’t make decisions for local counties with regard to what is best in a certain part of their community versus another part of their community, if they know the county better than we do. We want to take their advice and just try to help them accomplish the goal of getting people to those sites where they can get vaccinated. But believe me we want to, we have some of our rural counties by the way that are some of the best in the state, our rural counties delivering vaccines.

Greene County is an example. And I’ve mentioned them before in press conferences because it’s kind of remarkable for a small county to be able to do what they’ve done, to get the vaccines off the shelf into people’s arms as quickly as they have. I’m very proud of that, but also of the many counties that really stepped up to get this job done.

The county has administered 1,972 doses so far.

* The governor’s chief of staff also raved about the county’s efforts today…

* From January 20th…

Some parts of Illinois are further along. In small, downstate Greene County, about an hour north of St. Louis, the public health department has already started vaccinating teachers and others who have been exposed to the virus.

That includes Kathy Burkholder, 77. As a volunteer with Meals on Wheels, she delivers food inside people’s homes. Burkholder got her shot last week.