A6
COVID-19
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, April 28, 2021
Vaccine voices: Grant County
residents share thoughts
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
Eagle file photo
Grant County Public Health Administrator Kimberly Lindsay
Free, drop-in vaccinations
continue this week
Variants may be
leading to case
increases
By Steven Mitchell
Blue Mountain Eagle
With the state opening up
access to the COVID-19 vac-
cine for anyone 16 and older,
Oregon Health Authority
kicked off its drop-in Pfizer
COVID-19 vaccine clinics
Tuesday at the Grant County
Fairgrounds.
Grant County Public
Health Administrator Kim-
berly Lindsay said OHA would
continue to administer the
Pfizer vaccine at these clinics
from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 28,
from noon to 7 p.m. April 29
and April 30 and from 9 a.m.
to 4 p.m. May 1 in the parking
lot of the Grant County Fair-
grounds. No appointments are
necessary for the free shots.
Lindsay said she hopes
people will take advantage of
the opportunity.
Last week, she said the
health department adminis-
tered 59 new doses and 133
booster shots.
Grant County’s COVID-
19 case and vaccination rates
are showing signs of improve-
ment. According to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control, the
county has inoculated 24.8%
of the population. Meanwhile,
the infection rate over the last
week is 416.72 per 100,000
people, down from 1,644 per
100,000 people from April
4-17.
Lindsay told the Eagle that
people who get the vaccine do
not have to quarantine if the
health department identifies
them as a close contact. Lind-
say said people who are close
contacts are asked to quaran-
tine now for 14 days. She said
this changed with the spike in
cases.
Lindsay said the health
department would handle con-
tact tracing in the county from
now on. She said the state
helped the health department
with contact tracing last week
and could only reach roughly
40% of the contacts. Lindsay
told the Eagle that people may
not have picked up the calls
because they were not from
a local number. She said the
health department is back to
its typical 90% response rate.
Variants of concern?
While the infection rate
is down from where it was,
Lindsay said the county is
still seeing more people with
COVID-19 access the emer-
gency room.
She said the virus is still
impacting younger people,
and people continue to show
more severe symptoms.
All of this, she said, leads
her to believe there are more
variants at play than the state
can verify.
According to OHA, there
have been two variants of con-
cern and five variants of inter-
est in Grant County’s region
seven, which it shares with
Deschutes, Harney, Klamath,
Jefferson, Klamath, Lake and
Wheeler counties.
Lindsay said she did not
believe there had been a sig-
nificant drop in adherence to
social distancing requirements
in the last six weeks.
“The potential reality for
a variant to be contributing
to the cases is likely the lead-
ing factor,” she said. “I just
don’t believe that it’s mostly
attributable to COVID fatigue
and wanting to let our guard
down.”
With 121 cases in the last
two weeks, Grant County
is moving to the extreme
risk level Friday, closing
indoor dining through at
least May 6.
As Grant County resi-
dents began to line up to
get the COVID-19 vaccine,
CASA and Community
Counseling Solutions part-
nered up to talk to people
about their reasons for get-
ting the vaccine.
Lindsay Rausch, CASA’s
wraparound services coordi-
nator, said she and Elise Del-
gado, an outreach worker
with CCS, found that peo-
ple want to talk and connect.
She said they had questions,
opinions and experiences
around COVID-19 they
wanted to share.
“It was enlightening to
get beyond the headlines
and talking points and hear
real people’s experiences
firsthand,” she said.
Rausch said it was
“uplifting” as people talked
to her about their plans after
getting immunized, which
included bringing their
lives back to a “sense of
normalcy,” which included
being able to travel and see
family again.
With permission from
those she spoke to, Rausch
shared a few of these con-
versations without any other
identifying
information
except for gender identifi-
cation, age and initials.
The Eagle only made
general references to age
and gender for clarity and
readability.
From the polio
epidemic to the
COVID-19 pandemic
Eagle file photo
The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
infected 60,000 children at
its height, paralyzed thou-
sands and killed 3,000 peo-
ple. The U.S. began wide-
spread vaccinations in 1955
and completely eradicated
the the virus in the U.S. by
1979, according to the Cen-
ters for Disease Control.
“Kids died and nobody
talked about it. Kids just
never came home. If a
household had measles, a
quarantine notice was put
on your door,” the wife told
Rausch.
Vaccine hesitancy
A Grant County couple
who both lived through the
polio epidemic did not hes-
itate to roll up their sleeves
when it was their turn to get
the shot.
“I believe our medical
professionals know what
they’re doing,” the husband
said. “I’m old enough — I
went through the polio and
smallpox thing. The num-
bers tell you, this is not a
joke.”
According to the Mayo
Clinic, the polio epidemic
Rausch said, when she
and Delgado set out to talk
to people, she wanted to hear
from those who were hes-
itant at first but ultimately
decided to get the shot.
A woman in her late 50s
initially did not want to get
the vaccine.
However, Rausch said
she thought about her health
issues, a delay in getting sur-
gery, her job around kids and
decided to “brave up.”
In another situation, a
female in her 40s worried at
first about severe food aller-
gies, but after speaking with
nurses, chose to get it.
‘Less likely to get
seriously ill’
Rausch said, aside from
getting immunized for their
health, other reasons were
to see friends and family
again and to protect others.
“A close second was get-
ting back a sense of freedom
and normalcy,” she said.
A middle-aged resident
said, “I believe that getting
vaccinated will make it less
likely that I will get seri-
ously ill from COVID-19,
so I will continue to be able
to take care of my family.”
‘Maybe my mom
needed me to have it’
Rausch said she talked
to a woman in her late 50s
who dropped by the clinic
because of her elderly
mother.
“She asked me to,” the
woman said of her mother.
“She told me I should do it.
She’s very vulnerable, and
I’m over a lot. I may not
need it, but maybe my mom
needed me to have it.”
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