Health officials offered vaccines at a Missouri county fair. No one took advantage

A county fair in Missouri had a new attraction this year: a mobile coronavirus vaccine van.

State health officials have been searching for ways to promote the vaccines and encourage more Missourians to accept the shot as the delta variant continues to surge across the region. Vaccine acceptance has remained relatively low.

At the St. Charles County fair, in the St. Louis suburb of Wentzville, both the Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were available Tuesday and Friday — no one showed up to take advantage of either.

The turnout was nil, a Missouri TV station reported.

“It’s disappointing,” Nick Kohlberg of the St. Charles County Health Department, told KSDK of St. Louis.

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St. Charles County health officials could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Across Missouri, 48.1% of the population has initiated the vaccine and 41.3% has completed it, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

As of Sunday, the state ranked sixth nationally in the number of new cases per capita in the past seven days, according to data tracked by The New York Times. On Friday, the seven-day rolling average of daily deaths in Missouri was five per day, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. In the week prior, the state recorded nearly 13,000 new coronavirus cases.

In mid-July, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced a vaccine incentive program with $10,000 prizes for 900 lottery winners to encourage residents to at least get one dose of the vaccine against COVID-19.