My long-time best friend lives in Stockbridge. A retired truck driver, he is a staunch Trump supporter; I’m not. But he and I talked about Covid-19 when it first hit in 2020. I explained that from a public health standpoint developing the vaccine was vital and everyone must get vaccinated. We both agreed that when it came out, we would get it as soon as possible. And we did. But that is certainly not the case with many Henry County residents, as explained below.

Nationally, the reaction of many citizens to the Covid pandemic has been overtly or covertly political. Rationally, it should not be. After all, both the Trumps and Bidens were vaccinated (although the Trumps did it in secret for whatever reason).
Nationally, 57% of people have had at least one shot and 49% are fully vaccinated as of 7-28-21 (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html). But there’s a major discrepancy in vaccination rates in blue versus red states.

In New England, shot rates are very high (for example, in Vermont 75% have had at least one shot). However, with only 45% of its population fully vaccinated, Georgia is worse off than 43 other states (the ones worse than us are all solid red states).

I have been involved on the business and policy sides of healthcare for many decades, including being on two Georgia county Boards of Health and serving as the first Director of Health Planning for Georgia. And even I have problems figuring out where to look for accurate data about our own state; so be careful.

At the least, information about vaccinations is highly confusing. For example, on one site, the CDC figures show only 15% fully vaccinated for Henry, with 16% with one dose. These figures are very concerning. See-https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/

This breaks down to only 38,209 people with one dose and 34,741 with both. For the most at-risk age group (those over 65), the figures are still very low, 36% with one dose and 33% fully vaccinated. Rates that low for the most at-risk group are also very disturbing.

However, the good news is that (for whatever reason regarding the submittal process by the state) the CDC data on this site is running behind our actual vaccination rate. Therefore, this site dramatically underestimates our rate of injections.
In fact, as of 7-29-21, 39% of all Henry County residents have had at least one dose and 35% are fully vaccinated (https://experience.ar cgis.com/experience/3d8eea39f5c1443db1743a4cb8948a9)

However, these rates are much below our national goal of 70% fully vaccinated. Plus, the rate of vaccination varies tremendously by census tract within the County.

There have been over 900,000 Covid cases and nearly 19,000 Covid deaths in Georgia (https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report). We have had a lot of cases in Henry since the pandemic began – 20,599 with 340 deaths in a county of about 240,000 people.

Now for the even worse news. The highly contagious Delta variant is spreading the virus much more rapidly than before.
Further, as mentioned above, the national goal is a 70% vaccination rate and Henry is nowhere near that percentage. This figure is based on what scientific experts commonly say is the minimum needed to have “herd immunity” (i.e., to stop the spread of the virus).

Further, while the number of vaccinated people in Henry jumped dramatically in March and April, the number leveled off beginning in May and June (as it did nationally). And that’s not a good thing for any of us.

That leaves us with the looming question of why don’t the rest of the County’s residents get the shots? The answer may be that “it’s political.” One national survey found that 72% of Democrats claimed to have been vaccinated and another 12% planned to do so. The figures were only 54% and 11% for Republicans (https://morningconsult.com/covid19-vaccine-dashboard/#section-23).

Another poll found that only 63% of Trump supporters claimed to have had a shot, versus 71% of Biden supporters (https://www.kff. org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/vaccination-rates-are-relatively-high-for-older-adults-but-lag-in-counties-in-the-south-in-counties-with-higher-poverty-rates-and-in-counties-that-voted-for-trump/).

Regardless, we should all realize that although we have made great gains in this nation fighting the virus, the pandemic is not gone. It’s still very much with us; there were about 3,000 cases today (7-29). Sporadic outbreaks are occurring in unvaccinated areas (primarily red states), especially now that the highly contagious Delta variant is here.

All the more reason to bury the politics and make the effort to get the shots. It’s easy. More importantly, it’s just the smart thing to do.

Jack Bernard was the first Director of Health Planning for Georgia and served two terms on the Jasper County Board of Health. He retired as a Senior Vice President with a national healthcare corporation. He is now a widely published, nationally known expert on healthcare reform.