(Reuters) – When Juan Carlos Guerra received the January 12 call that his county would receive 300 doses of COVID-19 vaccine the next day, he went straight to work.
Guerra, a senior official in rural Jim Hogg County, Texas, met with local school superintendent Susana Garza, who helped him lead vaccination planning. They called on hundreds of vaccine-eligible residents to schedule meetings, unlike big cities, where locals report struggling with insane online registration processes.
Guerra, who has spent his entire life in Jim Hogg, said he knows almost everyone he calls and trusts him.
The next day, he and his staff set up a makeshift clinic at a local pavilion normally used for animal shows – a plan they hatched days earlier. Garza donated staff to help register patients, while a local home care company volunteered to examine everyone for fever.
With nurses from the Texas Department of Health administering the photos, the team ran out of supplies a few hours after he arrived.
Many rural counties, such as Jim Hogg, have excelled in making gun injections quickly and efficiently, surpassing large cities, despite disadvantages in medical infrastructure and finances, according to a Reuters review of vaccination data in several states until end of January.
Data from Michigan, Wisconsin, Texas, North Carolina and Florida showed that the highest per capita vaccination rates often belong to sparsely populated counties.
Rural community officials said personal ties to constituents made it easier to overcome the vaccine’s hesitation and identify those eligible for early vaccines, according to interviews with 20 local and national officials, health workers and vaccine recipients.
“It simply came to our notice then. We can pick up the phone and call each other, ”said Casie Stoughton, director of public health in Amarillo, Texas, who handles vaccinations for nearby rural counties.
Rural-dominated states, such as Alaska, West Virginia, and Minnesota, have vaccinated a larger share of their populations than geographically more mixed states, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As the national vaccination campaign picks up steam, officials in rural counties have expressed concern that they will get less from future vaccine allocations as urban areas catch up. But the early trend sheds light on an immunization program that lags behind the original goals.
As the Biden administration aims to vaccinate every US resident over the age of 16 by the end of the summer, the Reuters analysis suggests that strong local communication and scrappy vaccination strategies will be crucial.
Officials in the most successful counties quickly set up makeshift vaccination sites with few bureaucratic bureaucracies and relied on personal or word-of-mouth calls to meet schedules.
Although these measures will be difficult to duplicate in large cities, there are lessons to 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 controlling the pandemic.
The lack of federal direction or funding for vaccine distribution under former US President Donald Trump has left states and counties on their own, leading to a package of strategies across the country.
President Joe Biden has promised to speed up distribution and give states up to three weeks’ notice of future supply to address some of the current chaos, especially in larger states.
Meanwhile, rural health officials have taken matters into their own hands in time.
West Virginia – one of the poorest and most rural states in the country with one of the oldest and sickest demographics – has vaccinated 9.2% of its population since January 26, more than any other mainland state.
The state has recruited local pharmacies to vaccinate long-term care residents instead of opting for the federal government’s partnership with national pharmacy chains from CVS Health Corp and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
“That allowed us to be a little more agile,” said Krista Capehart, director of the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy. The state began vaccinating long-term care patients on Dec. 15, shortly after birth and about two weeks before most states launched CVS and Walgreens.
PITCHING IN
From the deserts of Texas to the forests of the Upper Michigan Peninsula and the Florida coast, rural health officials have turned to local hospitals, pharmacies, schools, police and firefighters to help set up vaccination clinics.
In Amarillo, for example, firefighters, park officials and library workers settled in, handing out water to the snake vaccination line at the local civic center and monitoring patients after vaccination.
Data from Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, and North Carolina – states chosen for county data availability and their rural / urban divisions – showed that they were usually leading urban counterparts in early vaccination rates.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey of 1,560 Americans in mid-January found that 54% of rural respondents said they had enough information about the vaccination site, compared with 38% among urban counterparts.
In Menominee County, Wisconsin, Yvonne Tourtillott, a receptionist at the only public health clinic, gave up everything to perform phone flashes when the county received vaccine doses in December and January, scheduling hundreds of meetings using an Excel spreadsheet. .
The effort paid off. The county with 4,500 residents has vaccinated more than 400 people since mid-January, giving it the third-highest rate in Wisconsin’s 72 counties at the time.
However, vaccination data are constantly flowing, and some small counties that started at the top of their state rankings have sunk as states have changed their allocations to be fair.
Brock Slabach, senior vice president of the National Rural Health Association, said rural health departments tended to be well connected, but added that access to vaccine supply is becoming a challenge.
“FAST TRAVEL NEWS”
In Menominee County, which also serves as the Menominee Indian Reservation, designing a mass communication strategy is a major obstacle, said Dr. Amy Slagle, medical director of the county’s public health clinic. Officials fear that telephone flashes will not be practical because more doses are coming in and many in the poor county do not have reliable internet.
Many local officials also fear that they could be effectively punished for their early effectiveness, as state governments divert future doses to help other counties catch up.
A new batch of data released Jan. 25 in Wisconsin showed Menominee’s per capita vaccination rate dropped from third to 29th in the state, with Slagle saying they had only received 10 doses in the previous week.
In Jim Hogg County, Guerra called on the Texas Department of State Services (DSHS) to keep vaccines in the impoverished county, saying it “remains at a disadvantage” in access to health care – a factor that may help increase COVID levels. 19. death rates.
Dr. Emilie Prot, the DSHS official in charge of the region, said the vaccination rate is one of many factors determining the allocation. “We want to make sure we’re fair and we can’t go back to the same places week in and week out.”
Some counties with strong vaccination efforts are doing more business than has been negotiated.
Rural Davie County, which for many weeks has led North Carolina in the vaccination rate, has attracted vaccine seekers from other parts of the state, said Wendy Horne, a spokeswoman for the local health department.
Residents of Davie, Sue and Dave Sidden, a retired couple who recently received the second dose of vaccine, attribute the county’s success to its close nature.
“There are no secrets in a small community,” Sue said. “News travels fast here.”
Reporting by Tina Bellon and Nick Brown in New York and Lisa Baertlein in Los Angeles; Edited by Joe White and Bill Berkrot