Fewer seniors getting vaccinated in ‘red’ counties
Even as California prepares to expand vaccine eligibility on April 15 to all residents age 16 and up, the state has managed to inoculate only about half its senior population — the 65-and-older target group deemed most vulnerable to death and serious illness in the pandemic.
Overall, nearly 56% of California seniors have received the full course of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about average compared with other states — not nearly as high as places like South Dakota, where almost 74% of seniors are fully vaccinated, but also not as far behind as Hawaii, which has reached 44%. The data, current as of Tuesday, does not include seniors who have received only the first dose of the Pfizer-biontech or Moderna vaccine.
But California’s overall progress masks huge variations in senior vaccination rates among the state’s 58 counties, which largely are running their own vaccine rollouts with different eligibility rules and outreach protocols. The discrepancies notably break down by geographic region, with the state’s remote rural counties — generally conservative strongholds — in some cases struggling to give away available doses, while the more populous — and generally left-leaning — metropolitan areas often have far more demand than supply.
In San Francisco Bay Area counties like Marin and Contra Costa, for example, more than twothirds of seniors are fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, in the far northern reaches of the state, encompassing some of California’s most dramatic and rugged ter
most dramatic and rugged terrain, rural counties like Tehama, Shasta and Del Norte have fully vaccinated only about a third of senior residents, according to the CDC data.
“We definitely share one thing in common and that is that we have a fairly high percentage of people who are vaccine hesitant. And that even spreads into the seniors,” Dr. Warren Rehwaldt, health officer for Del Norte County, said of the Northern California counties with relatively low vaccination rates. Del Norte, which is 62% white and voted solidly for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, has vaccinated 36.6% of residents age 65 and older.
The county, population 28,000, has spotty internet service, leaving the health department reliant on phone appointments for its twice-weekly clinics, which have the capacity to give out 300 doses in a day.
“I don't think we have filled any of them completely, and they are tapering off,” Rehwaldt said. Often, 100 or more appointment slots go unused, even after the county expanded eligibility to age 50 and up. “We expected that, but we didn't expect it this fast,” he said.
Every Thursday morning, Rehwaldt joins a local public radio broadcast to encourage people to get their shots, and the department regularly airs public service announcements. “But it's a really high hurdle to overcome serious misgivings about the vaccine itself,” Rehwaldt said.
Asked what resources might help bolster vaccination rates, Rehwaldt said he'd opt for a mobile van to travel to remote areas of his county. But moments later, he sighed and said he wasn't sure a van would help much after all. “What kind of resources are going to overcome hesitancy? It's not a resource problem,” he said.
On the other end of the spectrum are counties like Marin, a largely suburban and affluent stretch of communities just north of San Francisco where 71.4% of seniors are fully vaccinated.
The county also kept its eligibility rules tightly focused on seniors age 75 and older through the middle of February, while other counties were expanding to younger age groups and a broad array of occupations.