As COVID Vaccinations Slow, Parts Of The U.S. Remain Far Behind 70% Goal

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In April, a vaccination site in Trousdale County, Tennessee, administered just a handful of shots throughout the entire day. Since then, the daily pace of vaccinations has slowed even further. Rural areas across the South still have some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.

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Although she coordinates COVID vaccinations at the federally-subsidized clinic in Linden, Tenn., nurse Kirstie Allen has not yet gotten the vaccine herself. She wants to wait a while and see more research first. In Tennessee, only 42% of adults have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

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In Lobelville, Tenn., Laurel Grant was initially hesitant to get the shot. But after seeing friends and relatives get vaccinated, with minimal or no side effects, she got her own shot in June. It also helped that Grant’s employer, a Pilot Flying J truck stop, offered $75 to employees who got fully vaccinated.

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In Lobelville, Tenn., Laurel Grant was initially hesitant to get the shot. But after seeing friends and relatives get vaccinated, with minimal or no side effects, she got her own shot in June. It also helped that Grant’s employer, a Pilot Flying J truck stop, offered $75 to employees who got fully vaccinated.

Blake Farmer/WPLN

«But everybody I know has done real good, just maybe a little fever or a little tiredness, she says.

So Grant finally got her own shot in June, at a local pharmacy. It helped that the Pilot Flying J truck stop where she works offered a $75 bonus to employees who got fully vaccinated.

«There’s a few down there at work who are like, ‘I’m not going to get it,' Grant says, «I’m like, ‘Yes, you are. You gotta go, like it or not.'

Converts like Grant are being seen as the best kind of evangelist for this next phase of vaccinating latecomers. Tennessee’s health department has started taping video testimonials to release online.

But the marketing efforts are also beginning to annoy some Republican state lawmakers convinced the state is actually trying too hard. They’re especially concerned about kids.

A recent hearing in the Tennessee state legislature included threats of disbanding Tennessee’s health department. State Rep. Iris Rudder, along with some other GOP lawmakers, brandished printouts of social media ads produced by state health officials. They featured smiling kids with bandaids on their shoulders.

«It’s not your business to target children. It’s your business to inform the parent that their child is eligible for the vaccination, she told health department officials at the hearing in June. «So I would encourage you, before our next meeting, to get things like this off your website.

This criticism was mostly directed at the state’s health commissioner, Dr. Lisa Piercey, who responded at the hearing by saying the state is not «whispering to kids or trying to get them vaccinated behind the backs of their parents. She says she’s not going to back off when it comes to vaccination outreach.

But Piercy also doesn’t think the risk level in Tennessee is as dire as the low vaccination rates suggest. Tennessee had a huge surge of COVID illness during the winter. That meant there are at least 850,000 people — based on positive test results — who are walking around with some level of natural immunity. Piercey says those residents are partially compensating for low vaccination rates.

«Yes, I want everybody who wants a vaccine to get it, she says. «But what I really want at the end of the day is for this pandemic to go away. I want to minimize cases and eliminate hospitalizations and deaths, and we’re pretty close to getting there.

But the outlook is less rosy in neighboring Arkansas. The state escaped the worst of the winter outbreaks. Now it’s trying to stop flare ups of illness caused by the more contagious delta variant. Governor Asa Hutchinson told CBS’s Face the Nation that if nothing else will inspire southerners to get vaccinated, «reality will.

This story comes from NPR’s health reporting partnership with WBUR, Nashville Public Radio, and Kaiser Health News (KHN).