Personal touch, word of mouth: how American rural communities succeed in getting COVID-19 shots in their arms

(Reuters) – When Juan Carlos Guerra received the call on January 12 that his country would receive 300 COVID-19 doses of vaccinations the next day, he immediately went to work.

Guerra, the top-elected official in rural Jim Hogg County, Texas, teamed up with local school superintendent Susana Garza, who helped him plan vaccination. They have called hundreds of residents eligible for vaccines to plan appointments, in stark contrast to big cities, where locals are struggling through crazy registration processes.

Guerra, who has spent his entire life in Jim Hogg, said he knows almost everyone he has called, and that they trust him.

The next day, he and his staff set up a temporary clinic in a local pavilion normally used for cattle shows – a plan that had hatched their days before. Garza donated staff to help register patients, while a local home care company volunteered to examine everyone for fever.

While nurses from the Texas Department of Health administer shots, the team depleted their vaccine supply hours after it arrived.

Many rural provinces like Jim Hogg have excelled in getting weapons quickly and efficiently and overcoming big cities despite health and safety infrastructure and finance shortcomings, according to a Reuters survey of vaccination data in several states by the end of January.

Data from Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and Florida showed that the highest vaccination rates per capita belong to less populous counties.

Rural community officials said personal ties with ingredients make it easier to overcome vaccine hesitation and identify those eligible for early shots, according to interviews with 20 local and national officials, health workers and recipients of vaccines.

“We know each other here. We can pick up the phone and call each other, ”said Casie Stoughton, director of public health in Amarillo, Texas, who handles vaccinations for rural provinces in the area.

States dominated by rural communities, such as Alaska, West Virginia, and Minnesota, have inoculated a larger portion of their population than more geographically mixed states, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As the young, nationwide vaccination campaign is gaining steam, rural provincial officials have expressed concern that they will receive less from future vaccine allocations as urban areas catch up. But the early trend sheds light on a vaccination program that is behind the initial targets.

As the Biden government wants to vaccinate every American resident over the age of 16 by the end of the summer, Reuters’ analysis suggests that strong local communications and scrappy vaccination strategies will be crucial.

Officials in the most successful provinces quickly set up implemented vaccination facilities with little bureaucratic red tape and relied on personal careers or word of mouth to fill appointments.

Although the criteria are difficult to replicate in large cities, lessons can be learned as federal officials become more involved in the process.

COVID-19 has killed more than 427,000 people in the United States and threatens to overwhelm hospital systems nationwide, making a successful vaccination campaign crucial to bringing the pandemic under control.

The lack of federal direction or funding to distribute vaccines under former U.S. President Donald Trump has left states and provinces to take care of themselves, resulting in a patchwork of strategies across the country.

President Joe Biden has promised to accelerate the spread and give states up to three weeks notice of the upcoming offer to address some of the current chaos, especially in larger states.

Meanwhile, rural health officials took matters into their own hands early on.

West Virginia – among the poorest and most rural states in the country with one of the oldest and sickest demographics – vaccinated 9.2% of its population as of January 26, more than any other continent.

The state recruited local pharmacies to vaccinate long-term care residents instead of the federal government’s partnership with national pharmacy chains from CVS Health Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.

“It allowed us to be a little more mobile,” said Krista Capehart, a director of the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy. The state began vaccinating long-term patients on Dec. 15, shortly after delivery and about two weeks before most states launched CVS and Walgreens.

IN HOUSE

From the Texas deserts to the forests of the Upper Peninsula in Michigan and the Florida coastline, rural health officials have called on local hospitals, pharmacies, schools, police and firefighters to help set up vaccination clinics.

In Amarillo, for example, firefighters, park officials and library workers handed out water to those who were in the pendulum vaccine at the local civic center and watched the patients after vaccination.

Data from Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas and North Carolina – states selected for provincial data availability and their rural / urban distribution – showed that they were typically prominent urban peers in the vaccination rates at the beginning of implementation.

A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation among 1,560 Americans in mid-January found that 54% of rural respondents said they had enough information on where to be vaccinated compared to 38% among urban peers.

In Menominee County, Wisconsin, Yvonne Tourtillott, a receptionist at the Lonely Public Health Clinic, gave up everything to do phone calls when the country received vaccine doses in December and January, and made hundreds of appointments using an Excel spreadsheet. scheduled.

The effort paid off. The province of 4,500 residents vaccinated more than 400 people as of mid-January, giving it the third highest percentage of Wisconsin’s 72 counties at that time.

Vaccination data, however, is ongoing, and some small provinces that started at the top of their state rankings have sunk as states have adjusted allocations to be fair.

Brock Slabach, senior vice president at the National Rural Health Association, said rural health departments are well connected, but added that access to vaccine supply is becoming a challenge.

‘NEWS TRAVEL FAST’

In Menominee County, which also serves as the Menominee Indian Reservation, the design of a mass communications strategy is a major obstacle, Dr. Amy Slagle, medical director of the province’s public health clinic, said. Officials are afraid that phone calls will not be practical as more doses are coming in and many in the poor country do not have a reliable internet.

Many local officials also fear that they could be punished effectively because of their early effectiveness, as state governments divert future doses to catch up with other provinces.

A new amount of data released from Wisconsin on Jan. 25 showed Menominee’s per capita vaccination rate dropped from third to 29th in the state, and Slagle said they received only ten doses last week.

In Jim Hogg County, Guerra called on the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to allow the vaccines to flow to the deeply impoverished country, saying it was a disadvantage for access to health care – a factor that could contributes to higher COVID-19 mortality rates.

Dr. Emilie Prot, the DSHS official in charge of the region, says the vaccination rate is one of the many factors that determine the award. “We want to make sure we’re fair, and we can not go back to the same places week after week.”

Some provinces with a strong vaccination effort are getting more cases than they predicted.

Rural Davie County, which has led North Carolina in the vaccination rate for many weeks, is attracting vaccine applicants from other parts of the state, said Wendy Horne, a spokeswoman for the local health department.

The residents of Davie, Sue and Dave Sidden, a retired couple who recently received their second dose of vaccine, attribute their country’s success to its close nature.

“There’s just no secret in a small community,” Sue said. “News travels fast here.”