Yahoo Movies How does Mecklenburg compare in vaccination rate to counties in NC and across the US?
Mecklenburg County, last year’s initial epicenter of coronavirus cases in North Carolina, is among the slowest — both statewide and among peer counties nationally — to vaccinate its way out of the pandemic, a Charlotte Observer data analysis finds.
Just under 29% of all North Carolinians are fully vaccinated as of mid-week, according to the state Department of Health and Human Services. In Mecklenburg, the rate is closer to 22%.
Compared to similarly-sized counties throughout the United States, the percent of local residents who are vaccinated is lower in Mecklenburg.
That trailing statistic does not surprise Mecklenburg Public Health Director Gibbie Harris, who on Wednesday said she expects the county may soon catch up with or even surpass other areas.
With more than 1 million people, Mecklenburg is the most-populous county in North Carolina.
Earlier in the rollout, Harris had lamented Mecklenburg’s limited and sporadic vaccine allocation from the state.
“We are hoping to continue to move through the summer with vaccinations and making sure that people have access,” Harris said in a news conference this week. “(We’re) doing everything we can to help people understand why it is important to get vaccinated, and the benefits to the themselves, the people they love, the people around and to their entire community.”
Still, the health director acknowledged, it is already difficult to fill all available vaccine appointments.
North Carolina vaccine rates
People have flocked to Mecklenburg from surrounding counties and over the state line to get immunized. In the early weeks and months of vaccinations, mass clinics in Charlotte drew thousands, with Mecklenburg County serving as a regional resource hub. Charlotte is not only the largest city in Mecklenburg County and in the state of North Carolina but also has far more people than any other city in the Carolinas.
When people travel to another state or another county to get a shot, their vaccination is included in statistics for where they live. So, many of those people vaccinated locally weren’t counted in Mecklenburg’s totals.
Looking at mid-week vaccination data for other large N.C. counties, Mecklenburg residents have been slower to get shots:
▪ Forsyth County: 29.3% of residents are fully vaccinated
▪ Guilford County: 30.2%
▪ Wake County: 30.3%
▪ Durham County: 34.2%
▪ Buncombe County: 31.6%
U.S. vaccine rates
Mecklenburg’s lagging vaccine rollout is perhaps starker in a nationwide context, at least for now.
The Observer, using vaccination data from individual state health departments, analyzed nine peer counties that have a population within 10% of Mecklenburg’s. Beside Fulton County, Ga. — home to Atlanta — all other counties outperformed Mecklenburg.
The largest gap identified was 12 points, by Contra Costa County, Calif., located in the San Francisco Bay area.
Montgomery County, Md. — which includes Silver Springs and Bethesda, right outside Washington, D.C. — boasts a vaccination rate that is almost nine percentage points higher than Mecklenburg.
Here is the ranked list, compiled on Thursday:
Contra Costa County, Calif: 34.1%
Montgomery County, Md: 30.7%
Wake County: 29.6%
Allegheny County, Pa: 28.7%
Salt Lake County, Utah: 27.2%
Collin County, Texas: 27.2%
Pima County, Ariz.: 27%
Fairfax County, Va.: 25.2%
Mecklenburg County: 21.8%
Fulton County, Ga: 17.5%
There are some caveats to the raw numbers, including backlogged local data, differing vaccine eligibility timelines, missing reports from federal vaccine providers, and discrepancies in counting immunized residents versus non-residents. Pennsylvania, for example, only expanded vaccine eligibility to all adults on April 19, a week later than North Carolina.
Yet holistically, the data show a patchwork, lurching journey to reach the light at the end of the vaccine tunnel. Supply is expanding everywhere, but demand is plateau or diminishing, health experts fear.
‘Vaccine is going to save us’
Mary Anderson, spokeswoman for Maryland’s Montgomery County health department, attributed some of the county’s success to its large population of older residents. The county is home to more than 73,000 people who are at least 75 years old, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. They were among the first to be eligible for the vaccine.
Mecklenburg, by comparison, is home to about 49,000 people who are 75 or older.
“We’ve got a fairly well-informed population who have been waiting for the vaccine because they’ve been hearing for the last year that the vaccine is going to save us, going to let us get back to some sort of normalcy,” Anderson said.
She also praised the county’s effort to vaccinate harder-to-reach populations, such as low-income earners who might not have transportation to mass vaccination sites and those who speak English as a second language.
Montgomery County translates its COVID-19 website and fliers into six languages, Anderson said.
She said community organizers, churches and former census volunteers have helped with the outreach.
You now can easily find walk-in COVID vaccine appointments in Charlotte. Here’s how.
Increase trust
A county’s ability to reach specific communities and gain their trust will help determine how successful its vaccination efforts are, said Tara Kirk Sell, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
“There are going to be some populations that will continue to have hesitancy,” Sell said. “That will take a concerted effort to increase trust in people who question both that the pandemic is really a big deal and that we have a vaccine to protect them.”
Walk-in vaccine clinics could accelerate Mecklenburg’s equitable distribution plans, especially if they’re strategically located in Black and brown neighborhoods. It reduces barriers like needing to take time off work or scheduling appointments weeks in advance, said Michael Thompson, associate chair of the public health sciences department at UNC Charlotte.
And people immunized close to home can become role models to friends and families who were reluctant or distrustful, he said.
“We’re getting to the end of of the people willing to get vaccinated,” Thompson said.
“We’re going to be switching strategies to more community-based, more targeted messaging ... It’s going to require a lot more networking and taking advantage of individual relationships, working with community organizations, religious organizations and primary care providers.”
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