My Community Refuses to Get Vaccinated. Now Delta Is Here.

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/07/arkansas-cases-covid-19/619515/

At a county health department near my hometown in rural Arkansas, almost everyone who comes in for a COVID-19 test is congested and short of breath, with a sore throat and muscle aches. They might have the flu, except for the added telltale symptom of this coronavirus: the loss of taste and smell. Many of the patients now are younger than those in previous months; a nurse who works there told me she saw two cases of young children in one day. (The Atlantic agreed not to name the nurse, because, as a state employee, she is not authorized to speak with the media.) Even worse, though, is that almost every potential case she saw was avoidable. Almost none of the eligible adults she tested had had one of the vaccines.

Arkansas has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the United States, and one of the worst case rates for COVID-19. Our neighboring states—especially Missouri—are seeing similar trends. Case counts have been increasing at the highest rates since February, and we have the most new cases per capita in the nation. On Monday, we saw the highest single-day increase in hospitalizations, 79 new patients, of the entire pandemic. Test-positivity rates are also high, suggesting that infections are undercounted. In my county, Van Buren County; in the more rural Searcy County to the north; and in the more densely populated Faulkner County to the south, the daily case totals are, respectively, 119 percent, 142 percent, and 191 percent higher than their averages over the previous two weeks. Because new cases show no sign of slowing down, we likely have more illness ahead. My local Facebook feed has again become a steady stream of families asking for prayers and making announcements for memorial services.

The nurse at the health department told me that she and her co-workers had expected that some people would resist vaccination, but that “seeing that resistance persist despite education, despite outreach” had left her and her colleagues depressed and downtrodden. “Why are they not understanding how this is putting people’s lives in danger?” she asked. Like her, I’ve been haunted by this question. Sixty-two percent of my neighbors remain unvaccinated for complicated, interrelated reasons that map onto existing, bitter divisions. Any solutions, equally complicated, will likely come only after we’ve seen more death.

I had expected some amount of vaccine hesitancy in my hometown, a small place of about 2,500 residents, called Clinton, on the southern edge of the Ozark Mountains, because of the way this pandemic has unfolded from the beginning. Although schools and many restaurants temporarily shut down here, my region is full of people who have been reluctant to wear masks, stay at home, and otherwise adapt to new recommendations from health authorities. Big stores such as Walmart enforced mask wearing, but many smaller establishments didn’t. Many schools went partly remote, but ball games continued. The community seemed split between people who were taking the pandemic seriously and people who thought the disease was a hoax, or no worse than the regular flu.

*snip*

[Mrs. Claw]

1. They rejected the science.

Science is not red or blue, it is just fact. But the facts became inconvenient so they just ignore them.

[pandr32]

2. +1

...and welcome to DU!

[FakeNoose]

3. Oh gosh, who could have predicted this?

If only there had been some way they could have protected themselves.
If only they had been warned.