WASHINGTON – During a Republican leadership press conference, U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt urged fellow Missourians to get vaccinated against COVID-19. “I was just in Missouri. Our numbers are not where we’d like them to be. In early June, we were having about 400 new cases a day,” Blunt said. “Now, we’re having something closer to 1,400 new cases a day. And at every event I was at, I encouraged people to get the vaccine, unless their doctor had specifically discouraged them from getting the vaccine.” Virus variants add to the need to vaccinate, Blunt said. “Nobody will benefit from having this virus continue to develop other variants,” he said. “So it’s vaccine versus variant – first at home and then whatever we can do to help fight that same fight all over the world. We are not nearly in as bad a place as we were, but we’re not nearly in as good a place as we would all like to be.” ...