Covid-19 Vaccines Reach the Most Remote Americans
WISE, Va.—This mountainous corner of Appalachia is one of many remote communities where medical workers are just starting to deliver Covid-19 vaccines, demonstrating the great effort it will take to reach the most isolated Americans. For decades a mobile clinic called the Health Wagon, founded by a nun, has been the primary point of care for a scattered population of aging coal miners across nine Virginia counties. Earlier this month, the clinic was on the road to deliver five of the first Covid-19 vaccines it received. Mondy Gardner, 59 years old, was waiting when the Health Wagon came to give him his first dose at his best friend’s house. With diagnoses of muscular dystrophy and lung disease, Mr. Gardner said he has been too afraid of contracting Covid-19 to visit a doctor’s office during the pandemic. “I hope it works,” he said of the vaccine, rolling up his sleeve in the yard.
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In the Southwest, veterans volunteering with the nonprofit Team Rubicon are administering vaccines in the Navajo Nation to people who in some cases live hours apart. “A lot of these houses, you can’t see one house to the next,” said Nick Mrzlak, a deputy director at Team Rubicon. “There aren’t really road signs.” Team Rubicon is also working in Virginia’s Rappahannock County, where volunteer Yowei Peralta said it can be hard to find enough people to staff a vaccination site. A former U.S. Army intelligence officer, Mr. Peralta said that on the first day he helped run a vaccination site, he and three fellow volunteers worked nonstop for eight hours.
Many residents of central Appalachia have co-morbidities that make them more susceptible to severe cases of Covid-19, such as diabetes and lung disease, doctors in the region say. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called the region the diabetes belt. Some 21% of former coal miners in the region show evidence of pneumoconiosis, commonly known as black lung, which is caused by inhaling coal dust over a prolonged period, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
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After opening a vial of Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine on a recent morning, Drs. Hill-Collins and Tyson had only a few hours to get five doses into the arms of patients living in distant nooks of the surrounding mountains, known locally as hollers. From there, they would trek back to the clinic, where the vial’s remaining five doses would be distributed to patients who had driven in for appointments. At the home of Betty Deloris Jones, 78, who is homebound with rheumatoid arthritis and diabetes, the group also vaccinated her niece Karen Gardner—the sister of Mondy Gardner—who is in her 50s and has chronic pulmonary lung disease. Ms. Gardner said her neighbor, as well as her neighbor’s brother and uncle, all died of Covid-19 after attending a church supper.
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After winding farther through the hollers, Mr. Smith eased the RV into the yard of Danny Sturgill, 59. He parked with the back of the vehicle hanging precariously over a small cliff. Inside, Mr. Sturgill’s wife, Melanie, 60, who had meningitis five years ago, lay in bed, wrapped in a rainbow blanket. To administer three shots at once, the Health Wagon had called ahead to make sure Mr. Sturgill’s friend Mr. Gardner would be there, too. Mr. Gardner said he hoped that, after the Health Wagon returned to administer his second dose, the vaccine would allow him to venture out into the world again.
“I might go to a restaurant and eat. But not inside,” he said. “I haven’t gone inside anywhere.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-vaccines-reach-the-most-remote-americans-11615982401 (subscription)
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