Klinger Shares COVID-19 Vaccination Plans with State Senate Committee

(KWNO)- Winona County Emergency Management Director Ben Klinger shared updates on the county’s COVID-19 response with the Minnesota Senate’s Health and Human Services Finance and Policy Committee on Monday.  

Klinger said local public health officials and emergency responders are prepared for mass vaccination events when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes widely available. He said the mass COVID-19 testing event held at Winona State and community flu clinics conducted in the fall have helped prepare local officials for a mass event in the era of COVID-19.  

Klinger also shared frustrations he and other officials are experiencing at the local level as the state continues rolling out the vaccine. 

“From my point of view, we are constantly getting mixed messages on the rollout and our involvement,” Klinger said. “Then we put information out we receive from the state and then when things change, we put out that it changes but, even though it’s no fault of the locals own, our local public health bears the brunt of that change.”  

Klinger pushed for local control of the vaccine rollout.  

“I’m just urging that this gets put more in the local’s hands. We are ready to go and we are prepared and ready to roll out the vaccine,” said Klinger.