Nearly three months later, with plenty of vaccine deals on hand and eligibility open to all residents 16 and older, officials struggled to make appointments, said Kristy Fryman, emergency response coordinator and intelligence officer. public for the health district of Mercer County. About 264 people received the first dose at the district clinic earlier this month – about half the number who signed up at the start of the launch.
“People in rural areas tend to have an attitude of being self-sufficient, especially among the younger population,” Fryman said. “I’ve also heard that people are waiting to receive the vaccine because they want to know the side effects on that road. And then another comment would be that the vaccine is too new.”
“We are reaching the point where we are reaching a difficult audience,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO). “Those who are either unsure or on the fence about the vaccine don’t have enough information or are just plain … not interested in the vaccine for other reasons.”
Experts, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, estimate that somewhere between 70-85% of the country must be immune to the virus – either by inoculation or previous infection – to suppress its spread. But the US is not yet close to these levels and slowing demand – especially now that eligibility has opened – means getting there could be a higher task than some local officials expected.
An issue of demand
She told the United States Joint Economic Committee on Wednesday that a major challenge for vaccines against Covid-19 in the coming months will be demand: getting enough people to make the fire. And there are several reasons why.
“The work we do on equity needs to be done more deeply and done in the communities where people live and work,” said Freeman of NACCHO. “We need to be very creative in finding unique ways to reach people, including making sure they have the easiest possible access to the vaccine.”
In Mercer County, Fryman said officials are working to make vaccines more accessible, including events targeting the Hispanic population and initiatives to get more information from the Amish and Marshallese populations.
Other groups are hesitant, Gounder said, including younger Americans, as well as what she calls the “mobile medium” – those on the fence but who could be influenced by more information about the Covid-19 vaccine.
“Then you have another, much stronger, more entrenched group, about 20 percent of Americans,” Gounder said. Those are more rural and conservative Americans who lack confidence in the health care system and the government, she said.
“This group is more challenging because it is not necessarily a group that will respond to education as it will make a more mobile medium,” Gounder said. “And that’s what worries us.”
“It means that geographically you’re likely to have – not just rural versus non-rural, but also political – certain populations that have lower vaccination coverage rates,” Gounder said. “And so … you’ll probably see more broadcasts in those subgroups.” And these populations, she added, could be spread to other communities.
“I think it’s having a terrible effect,” Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Philadelphia Children’s Hospital’s Vaccine Education Center, told CNN recently. “I think people may be wrong to think, ‘Well, if this is true with this J&J vaccine, maybe it’s true with all vaccines.’
Now, an “upward battle” for local officials
Officials in Lubbock, Texas, began noticing a slowdown last month. The city, a small urban center that hosts Texas Tech University, is home to a predominantly rural county.
“We’re what people think Texas looks like,” said Katherine Wells, the city’s director of public health. “Tumbleweed and dry.”
When the first meeting with the Covid-19 vaccine opened, demand was so high that callers collapsed the city’s telephone system, Wells said. By March, demand had begun to decline.
“We have a giant vaccination clinic that has run out of a civic center, four days a week, we can do 2,500 vaccines a day,” she said. “Since about three weeks ago, we have not been able to meet all these appointments.”
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 per hour the next day after the break was announced, even though officials offered the Modern shot to those with J&J appointments, Wells said.
The change in demand underscores the challenge for health officials, experts say.
“This initial request with those high priority groups and not being able to support it 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 probably thought we would have to do it.” said Freeman.
“I think we’ve done the easy part, and I think you’ll need to be in the community or find people who need to be vaccinated and provide the vaccine with as few circles as possible,” Wells said.
Local officials have created a program targeting minorities and populations “who are usually away from health care,” Wells said, and have also started pop-up clinics for all major events in the area, including college sports events, parades. and other holidays.
“I would definitely like to go higher,” said David Gonzales. “But again, we can do so many things. We can promote it, we can ask people, we can offer it, it’s free. We try to offer a lot of people to enter a clinic. We try to do it as easily as possible, but we can really do so many things. “