“While the governor touted his ideas to move our state forward, our focus should be on addressing the issues we see today: vaccine distribution and COVID-19 recovery,” said Simpson. “This governor and his administration have not provided a clear plan to the state on the vaccine, which has led to delays and mass confusion among our residents about who is eligible and who is not to receive the vaccine. The slower the rollout, the slower our small business owners can get back to economic prosperity.

“In today’s address, the governor said the vaccine would not reach “critical mass” until next December. Unfortunately, our small businesses and hard-working constituents cannot wait for this arbitrary deadline. They need a chance to prosper and this can only happen when some of the harsher lockdown measures are lifted and we speed up our vaccine distribution.”