Vaccine program runs into rural roadblock
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/...um=article_rail
by Cassidy Morrison, Healthcare Reporter |
| April 11, 2021 06:08 AM

Adults in rural areas are more likely to refuse the coronavirus vaccine than their urban and suburban counterparts, signaling that the federal vaccination campaign still faces a problem convincing some people to get the shots.

The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that 21% of adults living in rural parts of the United States would “definitely not” get the coronavirus vaccine once it became available to them, compared with 13% of adults in suburban areas and 10% in urban areas. The proportion of rural residents who said in March that they definitely would not get the shots was also consistent with previous months’ polling results. Almost three-quarters of them identified as Republican or Republican-leaning, and roughly 4 in 10 identified as white evangelical Christians.

“There’s nothing inherently unique about living in a rural area that makes people balk at getting vaccinated,” KFF President Drew Altman said. “It’s just that rural areas have a larger share of people in the most vaccine-resistant groups: Republicans and White Evangelical Christians.”

The Biden administration has made a push to convince more people in rural and poor areas to get the vaccine as soon as it becomes available to them, which is bound to be soon as most states will have opened up eligibility for the shots to every adult. The federal government has allocated nearly $10 billion to expand access to vaccines in these areas, funding that comes in part from the recently enacted American Rescue Plan worth about $1.9 trillion. The Biden administration suggested states could use some of the funding to support rural and faith-based organizations to canvas their neighborhoods to schedule vaccine appointments. -- excerpt, rest at link above --