St. Clair County Taps Gilbert Gottfried to Deliver Vaccine Information

The future is now and having access to video-sharing services like Cameo means that you can pay pretty much any celebrity to say anything in a video recording for you.

For a fee, you can hire a celebrity to send a friend a birthday greeting or (for a much heftier fee) drop in on a Zoom call or any number of digital services. The choices of celebrity are endless, and there are more famous people getting in on the trend to make ends meet ever since the pandemic devastated the entertainment industry.

And now some genius over at the St. Clair County Health Department has hired comedian Gilbert Gottfried to help them spread the news about COVID-19 vaccine availability.

In the video, the Brooklyn native with the legendarily intrusive voice introduces the “important message” about the county’s mass vaccination site at the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds (200 South Belt East #2650, Belleville, IL 62220), where they’ve been doing drive-through vaccinations since February.

“Ya know you have to do it,” Gottfried says in his personalized message. “You have to get vaccinated. No kidding. This one’s a matter of life or death. So go there. It’s at the Belle-Clair Fairgrounds and it’s going to be open every day except Wednesday, so go there and get vaccinated.”

The drive-through mass vaccination site is closed on Wednesdays but open every other day of the week between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. The vaccine is free, and appointments to get to shot are not required because the site is generally not busy, which is why it’s shutting down on May 30, 2021.

"At our peak we were doing just under 3,000 doses a day," St. Clair County Emergency Management Agency Director Herb Simmons told KSDK. "Demand has slowed down, we're doing less than a thousand a day."

If you’d like a shot after May 30, there will be drive-through lanes open at 330 West Main Street in Belleville, and Simmons expects that location to stay open until the county has no need to operate a vaccination site.

For questions or to schedule an appointment visit co.st-clair-il.us, or call the St. Clair County Health Department at 618-509-6010.

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