In today’s partisan political environment, U.S. Rep. Brett Guthrie, R-Bowling Green, believes he has found a bipartisan success story in the country’s rollout of vaccines against COVID-19.

Guthrie, the ranking Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s health subcommittee, was in Bowling Green on Wednesday to tout that story and encourage people to be vaccinated against a disease that has afflicted the world for more than a year.

“Operation Warp Speed was started under President Donald Trump, and now it is continuing under President Joe Biden,” Guthrie said after touring the vaccination site at the Western Kentucky University Health Sciences Complex on the Med Center Health campus. “Regardless of your politics, there’s no reason not to be vaccinated.”

Guthrie, who has served in Congress since 2009 and has a consistently conservative voting record, tried to reassure his fellow conservatives, who polls indicate show the most vaccine hesitancy.

“From my perspective, I’m completely confident that the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) cut no corners,” he said. “There have been zero shortcuts in safety and efficacy.”

Guthrie pointed to the vaccine center on the Med Center Health campus as an example of how the Pfizer vaccine program in particular has been put together efficiently.

“I’m an advocate of what’s happening here at The Medical Center,” Guthrie said. “They’re doing 900 vaccinations per day, and they’ve made it easy and efficient to do.”

Despite a system that runs people through the process with minimal wait times, Med Center Health Vice President of Corporate Support Services Dr. Melinda Joyce said she continues to see some vaccine hesitancy locally.

“We are seeing some hesitancy among women of child-bearing age,” Joyce said. “That’s concerning. There’s no science to show that the vaccine can cause reproductive issues. We really want everybody to get the vaccine if possible.”

Joyce said the five Med Center Health locations in southcentral Kentucky have administered 66,293 doses of the Pfizer vaccine, including 29,290 second doses.

With anyone age 16 and over now eligible to receive the vaccine in Kentucky, Guthrie expects that number to continue growing. Already, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2,333,781 COVID-19 shots of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines have been administered in Kentucky.

Guthrie said the federal government has been instrumental in delivering the vaccines so quickly, either through buying doses directly from manufacturers or through provider relief funding included in the CARES Act.

“It’s fair to say that taxpayers are paying for it,” Guthrie said of the vaccine rollout. “We were absolutely correct to do that. Europe didn’t do that, and they’re having problems.”

Guthrie said the emergence of COVID-19 variants that can be more contagious and more harmful to young people only heightens the importance of getting vaccinated.

“We want to get everyone vaccinated before the virus figures out how to beat the vaccine,” he said. “It’s a race against the mutations.”

Saying he is anxious to do away with mask-wearing mandates and return to normal functioning of the economy, Guthrie said: “We’re close to the end of this if everybody will get vaccinated.”

– More information about vaccine sites and availability can be found at the state’s kycovid19.ky.gov website.

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.