One year after COVID-19 begin affecting the area, introducing stay-at-home orders, mask mandates and limiting social gatherings, the COVID-19 Vaccine began to become available to the majority of the population.

Vaccine distribution was done in phases with phase one including health care workers.  By the time we got to March, a year after the state had gone into a lockdown for COVID, vaccine distribution had hit phases three and four which made it available to almost everyone.

Eventually, three different brands of the vaccine were available, the first of which was Pfizer followed by Moderna and Johnson and Johnson. The J&J version of the vaccine was just a single dose, which made it more requested.  Vaccines became available not only at hospitals and pharmacies but also on the campuses of colleges and we even had them available at our annual farm and home show.

As we approach the end of 2021 vaccines and vaccine mandates continue to be a polarizing topic as now a third strain of COVID is affecting the country.