Nearly a quarter of Alexander County’s 5,760 residents live in poverty and it is among the poorest counties in the state, according recent c ensus figures. And to pass it up, unfortunately, and get COVID thereafter and not have a favorable course, it’s really a tragedy.”Īt the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers, Alexander County borders Missouri and Kentucky, another state where COVID cases have recently spiked. … There’s something within a few miles of everyone. “Because everyone has access to this vaccine, right now. “We really have to get away from the misinformation that’s costing us our lives, literally,” she said. Ngozi Ezike addressed and dispelled at a May virtual town hall on COVID-19 for southern Illinois. This tracking device myth was among the conspiracy theories surrounding COVID-19 vaccines that Illinois public health Director Dr. They’re gonna have to get smarter than that to trick me.” “I read about this in high school in an Orwell novel. “They ain’t trackin’ me with a radio implant device disguised as the miracle cure to the COVIDs,” he said. Matt Sullivan, 46, of Cairo said he refuses to get a COVID-19 vaccine, referring to it as “the government implant device shot.” You can lead the horse to the water, but you can’t make it drink the water.” That puts you in the position of trying to lead a horse to water and making it drink. And that’s a hard mentality to work with. “They didn’t think it was necessary to get one. “They weren’t going to be told to get the vaccine,” Ryder said. Some seemed on the fence, expressing vaccine hesitancy or a desire to wait until more people got the shot first. The results weren’t promising: About 60% of respondents said they weren’t interested in getting the shot, Ryder said. When vaccine rollout began in the winter, the health department polled residents from the seven-county area about their intentions to get vaccinated. “It was like the faucet was turned off at that point.” “Then it was like crickets after that,” he said. A Wellness on Wheels mobile clinic went from county to county each day, offering vaccine.īut by about mid-April, demand seemed to dry up. Vaccine was available at pop-up clinics, mass vaccination sites and health department clinic offices, he said. Then two Illinois National Guard teams came to help in March, and the health department was at times vaccinating 140 people in a two-hour period, Ryder said. The health department covers about 69,000 residents spread out across 2,000 square miles, roughly the size of Delaware.Īt first, six nurses were trying to vaccinate residents in seven counties. When vaccines came out in December, the Southern Seven Health Department had a waitlist of 7,000 names eager to get the shot, Ryder said. “Because we live in a very open place,” she said. She added that she feels safer from the virus because she lives in a small, less-dense area as opposed to a crowded city - although COVID-19 has hit urban regions and rural communities alike. To her, the vaccines seemed to come out very quickly even though research shows the shots are safe and effective, the young woman feared side effects or long-term health consequences. While she knows a few people who caught COVID-19, their cases weren’t severe. She works at a local grocery store in Olive Branch, an unincorporated area of about 500 residents. “I decided not to,” said the woman, who wanted to remain anonymous. One Alexander County resident said she doesn’t have a compelling reason to get immunized against the new coronavirus. I don’t think anyone wants to go through that experience again.” Though we could very easily slip backward on the slope and go back to where we were in November and December. We’re just coming out of a bad situation in Illinois. “What’s going on in southern Missouri is not a pretty situation. “There’s definitely cause for concern, especially with the lack of individuals getting themselves vaccinated here in the southern region,” Ryder said. Caseloads and hospitalizations in the Ozarks area have reached levels unseen since the winter, largely driven by the highly infectious delta variant of the virus first found in India. Overwhelmed hospitals in the southwest section of the state have sent COVID-19 patients to St. He points to the recent spike in cases in neighboring Missouri, just over the Mississippi River from Alexander County, as an ominous warning. “We definitely started sounding some warning bells,” said Nathan Ryder, community outreach coordinator for the health department. The Southern Seven Health Department - which serves Alexander County and a half-dozen others on the state’s southern tip - reported 11 coronavirus cases in the week ending June 25 the following week, just before the July 4 weekend, the public health department reported 40 cases.
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