Rural states got off to a faster start on vaccinations, but big urban centers expected to gain momentum
CDC lists Massachusetts in the middle of the pack, along with Texas and New York.
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Physician Alister Martin received one of the first doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Dec. 16.Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
West Virginia deployed National Guard units to get first doses of the vaccine to every nursing home before New Yearâs Day. In South Dakota, the Civil Air Patrol waited at the Sioux Falls airport to ferry vaccines to remote parts of the state.
Why states need to develop rural health outreach programs
Disparities in rural health care have been well established with respect to socioeconomic status, race, and geography. COVID-19 brought these disparities to the surface within most rural communities in the United States, highlighting the limited access to health care specialists and subspecialists.
As an otolaryngologist, I have had the privilege and unique opportunity of serving two different communities: Chicago’s city dwellers and residents of rural central Illinois. This past year, I have seen that the COVID-19 pandemic has further increased the already existing disparities between these two places, as it has across the nation.
COVID-19 Vaccinations Are Off To A Slow Start But Not In Some Rural Areas
By Kirk Siegler
January 8, 2021
In the small town of Oak Creek, Colo., a three-hour drive from Denver, assuming the roads are clear Gene Bracegirdle, a firefighter and EMT in training, is getting his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
“The fact that it is here is kind of mind-blowing, like, they care enough to reach out to the rural communities,” Bracegirdle says.
The vaccine arrived in Oak Creek via a blue igloo cooler in a new mobile clinic set up by the local Routt County health department. Officials used CARES Act money to get things going. The task at hand is huge. Health officials must distribute the shots to a population of about 25,000 people spread across 2,300 square miles of northwest Colorado.
Originally published on January 8, 2021 10:33 pm
In the small town of Oak Creek, Colo., a three-hour drive from Denver, assuming the roads are clear Gene Bracegirdle, a firefighter and EMT in training, is getting his first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. The fact that it is here is kind of mind-blowing, like, they care enough to reach out to the rural communities, Bracegirdle says.
The vaccine arrived in Oak Creek via a blue igloo cooler in a new mobile clinic set up by the local Routt County health department. Officials used CARES Act money to get things going. The task at hand is huge. Health officials must distribute the shots to a population of about 25,000 people spread across 2,300 square miles of northwest Colorado.
Medicine is failing rural Americans
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In recent years, the divide between rural and urban areas of the United States has become more pronounced, with sharply divergent views on both social and economic policies. The results of this latest election show starkly that the divide persists, and indicate that the institutions that shape our nation are not successfully representing all portions of society.
One of those institutions appears to be medicine. A sign of this is how the public has increasingly lost faith in physicians over the past few decades. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that in 2012 only 34 percent of Americans said they had great confidence in the medical profession’s leaders, less than half the reported figure from 1966. Trust has also faded, especially among low-income individuals, fewer than half of whom reported that they trusted doctors at all.