Rural COVID vaccination rates plunge in southwest IL. Could it lead to another wave?
It was only a month ago that counties across the metro-east were lobbying for more COVID-19 vaccines in hopes of containing the spread of the deadly virus.
But for some local health officials, the supply of vaccine doses has been greater than the demand. In Bond County, Health Department Administrator Sean Eifert said demand for shots has fallen off sharply in recent weeks.
On March 5, the county was vaccinating nearly 180 people a day on average. As of Thursday that average had fallen to roughly 100 people a day. Recently, Eifert said, a small clinic offering 100 doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine only garnered 15 appointments.
“Initially we had a really high demand for vaccines but as we’ve gotten more and more doses out that demand has decreased,” he said.
In late March, the state health department began allowing counties at their own discretion to expand vaccination eligibility to anyone 16 years or older. On April 12, the state extended eligibility to everyone.
But many simply don’t want to schedule their shots, Eifert said, out of concern about the safety of the vaccine. The recent halt in distribution of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine reinforces those fears, local health officials say.
“We have a significant portion of the population that doesn’t want to take the vaccine,” said Eifert. “It seems like there are still members of the population that are uncertain or skeptical because of the speed at which the vaccine was developed and rolled out.”
That’s a problem say health officials in the area who worry about a resurgence of COVID-19 as new more deadly and contagious COVID-19 strains spread through the area.
In Monroe County, Health Department Administrator John Wagner said after the initial surge of people 65 years and older were vaccinated, interest in vaccination appointments dropped steeply. Currently, 43% of the county’s 65 years and older population has been vaccinated.
“It’s very difficult to fill up a daylong mass vaccination event,” he said. “There’s appointments available and you can just drive up but it’s gotten down to where we run a daylong event and are using a substantial amount of vaccines but not as much as we could.”
In mid-March, Monroe County was vaccinating more than 400 people a day on average, according to data from the Illinois Department of Public Health. As of Thursday, that average had dropped to roughly 280 people a day.
Bond County had fully vaccinated about 3,600 people, or about 21.7% of its population of 16,630. In Monroe County, about 7,760 people had been fully vaccinated, or 22.61% of its 34,335 population.
Some rural areas ‘definitely’ don’t want vaccines
Other rural counties like Washington, Randolph and Clinton also are seeing steady drops in daily vaccination averages. Each of those southwestern Illinois counties have vaccinated about a quarter of their populations.
In a recent study released in early April, the Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare trends nationwide, found that 21% of five adults living in rural areas of the United States would “definitely not” be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The same study found that those who said they would “definitely not” get vaccinated wouldn’t do so due to the vaccines being too new and there being a lack of information about long-term effects. Another major reason people cited was that they don’t trust vaccines in general.
“There’s nothing inherently unique about living in a rural area that makes people balk at getting vaccinated. It’s just that rural areas have a larger share of people in the most vaccine-resistant groups: Republicans and White Evangelical Christians,” Drew Altman, president and CEO of the Kaiser Family Foundation, told National Public Radio in a recent interview.
Swaying people to get the shot
Eifert said swaying people who are hesitant or not interested in getting a vaccine shot has become a big part of the job. He said one way Bond County is tackling the problem is by distributing literature throughout the county addressing misinformation and worries over vaccines.
The literature covers the time frame in which the vaccines were developed, the possible side effects and other topics in a question-and-answer format. Eifert said it’s the best way to try to convince people who are hesitating on a widespread basis.
“It’s kind of the same factors that go into a person not getting the flu shot every year,” Eifert said. “So we just answer some of the questions, the more common questions or common misconceptions.”
Outside of that, Eifert said he shares his personal experiences with the virus and the benefits of the vaccine.
Wagner said Monroe County is trying to encourage vaccinations through several public meetings and the media, but noted that there’s no one easy way to convince people. He said at the end of the day, people shouldn’t have an excuse to not get vaccinated.
J&J issues could make things worse
But for Eifert and Wagner, the problem is getting harder to solve. Both believe news that distribution of Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen vaccines would be halted in the state may give people who were hesitant to receive a shot further pause.
On Tuesday, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced it would stop the distribution and administration of Johnson & Johnson’s Jannsen vaccine out of an “abundance of caution” while the U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Federal Food and Drug Administration review the cases of rare severe blood clotting in six people and the death of one who received the vaccine.
“It’s going to give those people who were a little bit reluctant but maybe we’re going to get it anyway a reason (to not get vaccinated),” Wagner said. “It’s just going to give people an excuse not to get it in their mind and there is no excuse to not get it.”
Eifert said from his perspective the added measure of caution should give people more confidence in the FDA and CDC.
“The fact that the FDA and CDC are being so extremely cautious should actually be reassuring as it demonstrates the extreme care they have taken and continue to take to ensure our safety,” he said.
A race against new COVID strains
Just last week, St. Clair County reported the first cases of the United Kingdom COVID-19 strain in the metro-east.
Wagner said the vaccination process is largely a race against the U.K. COVID-19 strain and other variants, but people under 65 years of age don’t appear to be in a rush to get vaccinated.
“We’re starting to get into that age group where the urgency to get vaccinated definitely is not there,” he said. “We need to have the same urgency we had with the elderly population.”
Wanger said for his Monroe County, a possible resurgence of the virus wouldn’t be just bad for people’s health, but another devastating blow to the economy, which has been damaged by state-mandated bans on indoor dining and other services that were put in place to slow the spread of COVID-19.
“The urgency is to stop the continued spread before we have a variant come out because of the spread that is something we have a very difficult time dealing with,” he said.