(Radio Iowa) – Governor Kim Reynolds is appealing to the hundreds of thousands of Iowans who still haven’t been vaccinated for COVID-19. The governor thanked the 900-thousand Iowans who are fully vaccinated. That’s about 37-percent of the state’s population, ranking Iowa 15th in the country. Reynolds says getting vaccinated is the best defense against the virus and it’s the only way to downgrade coronavirus from pandemic status. “If you’re opting to wait and see, what are you waiting for?” Reynolds asks. “If you’ve been a hard no from the start, what’s your reason? If you can’t answer those questions, maybe we hope you take the time to reconsider.”

Lieutenant Governor Adam Gregg will be going to Sioux City on Friday to get a COVID vaccine while on live T-V. Gregg is a native of the northwest Iowa community of Hawarden and his appearance in the largest city in the area is part of a state effort to encourage hesitant Iowans to get vaccinated.

The head of the Iowa National Guard joined Governor Kim Reynolds today (Wednesday) to urge Iowans hesitant to get the Covid vaccine to schedule a shot. Adjutant General Ben Corell got Covid in November and wound up being hospitalized for a full week. “I’ve always been a healthy individual. I hadn’t missed a day of work because I was sick. I had not been a patient in a hospital since the day I was born.”

Corell still has Covid symptoms, including fatigue and reduced lung capacity. He’s gotten both doses of the vaccine and, to those who are hesitant about Covid shots, the major general says: do it.