Shelby County rate of vaccination rises
Fear of getting sick, missing out drive increase in numbers
At a pop-up vaccination site at Greater Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church in North Memphis on Tuesday, members of the Memphis Fire Department and the U.S. military were administering free COVID-19 vaccines. Patients were asked which vaccine they preferred: the two-doses of Pfizer or the single-dose of Johnson & Johnson.
For 23-year-old Jaleel Coleman, getting his second dose of Pfizer was crucial. Without it, his grandmother won’t let him visit her.
“She has cancer. So I make sure that I do it so that we can see each other as a family,” he said. “She’s been preaching to me and all my friends. At one point, she wouldn’t let us come over. She was telling us to Facetime her because she didn’t want to get sick. I don’t blame her though.”
Coleman received one of about 1,800 vaccines reported Tuesday, helping push Shelby County to over 445,000 total vaccinations. The average rate of people being vaccinated per day has increased by over 70% since last month.
The rate of vaccination in Shelby County today is at its highest rate since April.
A recent report published Thursday by faculty researchers at the Department of Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Vanderbilt School of Medicine found young people especially are getting vaccinated at a greater clip but, the study notes, people across almost all age brackets younger than 60 saw growth in vaccinations in West Tennessee.
William Richmond, 42, said he was initially apprehensive about receiving the vaccine because there were many variables that made him unsure about the vaccine: the speed in which it was released, politician’s disagreement on the matter, and “all of the unknowns.”
But after hearing about the symptoms his close friends experienced with COVID-19, “I don’t want to be a part of it,” Richmond said.
“Once upon a time I was dead-set against [the vaccine]. But, I don’t want to go through the other, so this is the path that I have to take to not go to the other. So, I’ve made my peace with it.”
Richmond also said there is incentive more now than ever to get vaccinated.
“The world is closing around people who are not vaccinated. And so really, if you want to do anything, if you want to have any type of life, socially or anything of that nature, you are basically going to have to get the shot. And so I found that this incentivized me enough to get it done. I don’t want to miss out. Nobody wants to miss out. You feel like you missed out on enough.”
Combat Medic Michael Ward was one of the members of the Tennessee Army National Guard who administered vaccines at the church.
“I would say that the majority of folks coming in now are just now choosing to come get it because I think that it’s worse now than what it was a year ago. So they’re more scared now, and I think that they do whatever they can to be more protected.”
While the surge in delta variant cases has encouraged more people to get vaccinated, the report shows that growth was not reflected as highly for West Tennesseans in their 20s. Infection rates are higher among younger people who tend to be the least likely to be vaccinated.
Pastor Jairus Winfrey, who presides over the church says he is happy to see young people get vaccinated because, in his experience, they’re not convinced that the vaccine is the answer. “COVID-19 is kryptonite,” Winfrey said about young people who may feel invincible to the disease.
“We’ve had a few of them that have been really bright spots. You know, Jaleel knows that he needs to fit within his family. His family structure does not allow him to be careless with health.”
This was the third time Greater Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church served as a pop-up vaccination site.
For more information on the COVID-19 vaccine and how to get one visit covid19.memphistn.gov.
Reporter Laura Testino also contributed to this report.
Astrid Kayembe covers South Memphis, Whitehaven and Westwood. She can be reached at astrid.kayembe@commercialappeal.com, (901) 304-7929 and on Twitter at @as- tridkayembe_.