COVID-19 fight hits defiance, suspicion in rural California
RED BLUFF, Calif. — Jeremiah Fears sat beneath an elk head mounted on the wall of the volunteer fire department in his little city and rolled up his sleeve for what he hopes is a step toward normality: his first dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine. “If we can get vaccinated and do our thing to protect one another and ourselves, we can hurry up and open and go from there,” said Fears, chief of the Corning Police Department. “I know there’s controversy behind it. But it is what it is.” Fears had come to a vaccination clinic in Corning — population 7,600 — aimed at firefigh...