Officials struggled nearly three months later to fill appointments, with ample supply of vaccines and available to all residents aged 16 and older, said Kristy Fryman, the emergency response coordinator and public information officer for the Mercer County Health District. About 264 people received their first dose at the district’s clinic earlier this month – about half the number who signed up at the start of the launch.
“People in rural areas tend to be self-sufficient, especially among the younger population,” Fryman said. “We also heard that people are waiting to get the vaccine because they want to know the side effects of it. And then another remark would be that the vaccine is just too new.”
“We’re getting to the point where we’re getting to the hard of hearing,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, chief executive of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). “Those who are unsure whether on the fence about the vaccine do not have enough information, or simply … for other reasons are not interested in the vaccine.”
Experts, including dr. Anthony Fauci, estimates that between 70-85% of the country must be immune to the virus – either through vaccination or through previous infection – to suppress its spread. But the US is not yet close to these levels, and the slowdown in demand – especially now that suitability is open – means there could be a bigger task than some local officials expected.
A problem of question
She told the Joint Economic Committee of the United States on Wednesday that a major challenge for Covid-19 vaccinations in the coming months is the question: enough people need to get involved to take the chance. And there are several reasons why.
“The work we do on the stocks needs to be done deeper and done in the communities where people live and work,” NACCHO’s Freeman said. “We need to be very creative in finding unique ways to reach people, including making sure they have the easiest access to vaccination.”
In Mercer County, Fryman said officials are making efforts to make the vaccines more accessible, including events targeting the Spanish population and initiatives to get more information about the Amish and Marshallese populations.
Other groups are reluctant, Gounder said, including younger Americans, as well as what she calls the ‘movable drug’ – those who are on the fence, but who may be fed more information about the Covid-19 vaccine.
“Then you have another group that is much more resilient, more entrenched in their views, that’s about 20% of Americans,” Gounder said. It is more rural, conservative Americans who do not have confidence in the health care system and the government, she said.
“The group is more challenging because it is not necessarily a group that will respond to education as the kind of more mobile means will do,” Gounder said. “And that’s what we’re worried about.”
“That means you probably have geographically certain populations – not just by rural versus not rural, but also by reference to politics,” Gounder said. “And so … you’ll probably see more transfer within those subgroups.” And these populations, she added, could potentially spread seeds in other communities.
“I think it has a cold effect,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Center for Vaccine Education at Philadelphia Children’s Hospital, recently told CNN. “I think people may be mistaken in thinking, ‘Well, if this is true with this J&J vaccine, it might be true with all vaccines.'”
Now an ‘uphill battle’ for local officials
Officials in Lubbock, Texas, began noticing a slowing demand last month. The city, a small urban center where Texas Tech University is home, is the seat of a rural province.
“We’re what people think Texas looks like,” said Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health. “Tumbleweed and dry.”
When Covid-19 vaccine appointments opened for the first time, demand was so high that callers crashed the city’s telephone system, Wells said. By March, demand began to decline.
“We have a giant vaccination clinic that ran out four days a week in the civic center. We can do about 2,500 vaccines a day,” she said. “About three weeks ago, we could not fill all the appointments.”
The J&J News, she said, “slowed us down even more.” The clinic, which can accommodate several hundred vaccinations per hour, had an average of about 125 people a day the day after the break was announced, although officials offered the Moderna shot to those who had J&J appointments, Wells said. .
The shift in demand highlights the challenge facing health officials, experts say.
‘That initial question with the high-priority groups and not being able to keep up with the general population means that we really have a lot of work to do, and we need to do it now sooner than we might have thought. would have to do that, ‘Freeman said.
“I think we did the easy part and I think it’s really going to be necessary to be in the community or to find people who need to be vaccinated and offer the vaccine with as few hoops as possible,” Wells said. said.
Local officials have drawn up a program aimed at minorities and the population “which is usually rejected by health care,” Wells said. They also started pop-up clinics for all the major events in the area, including university sporting events, parades and other celebrations.
“I definitely want to get it higher,” David Gonzales said. “But again, there’s just so much we can do. We can promote it, we can ask people, offer it, it’s free. We try to offer a lot of people to come to a clinic. We try to make it as easy as possible. but we can actually do just as much. ‘