Vaccination rate slows to a crawl in Albany County
Even as the pandemic wears on and hospitalizations grow, the percentage of fully vaccinated Albany County adults has plateaued at less than 49%. The result will likely be more death and suffering.
Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has eagerly awaited the vaccine for a disease that has killed at least three million worldwide and maimed millions more. Much of the world is still awaiting access to vaccination.
But in Albany County, where anyone 12 and older who wants a vaccine can get one easily and for free, a majority of people are choosing to forgo the jab.
The county — like much of the state — has now hit the point at which most people who were wanting a vaccine have gotten one, and those who still haven’t aren’t interested.
The vaccination rate has plateaued at about 48.5% of the adult population.
“That plateau is occurring throughout Wyoming, and across the nation,” said Albany County Public Health Officer Jean Allais. “We are working to reduce barriers, so people have easier access to the vaccine. We realize the impact of misinformation, and we are working to be sure everyone has access to accurate information about the vaccines and their safety.”
The rate of vaccination is lower than polling last year predicted it would be, and has consequences both for individuals and society. Individuals who catch the coronavirus are sometimes asymptomatic, but others must fight for their lives against a nasty respiratory disease and may struggle to breathe even months after their recovery. Young and old alike can and have suffered that worse fate.
But the low rate of vaccination also endangers the community by giving the virus more time to spread, to mutate, and to become something more easily spread or deadlier.
One day, public health experts warn, such a variant could endanger even those who are already vaccinated.
How bad is it?
About 17,000 residents — 41% of Albany County’s total population — have been fully vaccinated, according to Wyoming Department of Health data. Meanwhile, 48.5% of all adults and 70.5% of seniors 65 and older have been fully vaccinated.
These rates mean that Albany is the second most vaccinated county in Wyoming, following Teton County (where 56% of the entire population and 66% of the adult population have been fully vaccinated).
That Albany and Teton Counties should lead the state in vaccination rates is unsurprising. It matches national trends showing that partisan divides correlate strongly with vaccine rates.
“They’re the least Republican/Trump-voting counties,” said Christine Porter, a public health expert at the University of Wyoming. “Vaccination was something that became politicized rather than science-based.”
It’s a trend seen across the country. Blue counties have higher vaccination rates, as do blue states.
So while it leads most of the state, Albany still lags behind the country as a whole. In the United States, 44% of the entire population is vaccinated, while 53% have received at least one dose. Wyoming is one of the least vaccinated states — fourth worst in fact, ahead of only Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi.
Vaccine hesitancy and rejection has also been driven by rampant misinformation spread via social media, and fueled by former President Donald Trump specifically, as well as others.
COVID-19 misinformation is killing people, as it has throughout the pandemic, which has led the Pan American Health Organization Director to call it “one of the most serious threats to public health.”
The Albany County Commission voted to loosen its mask mandate this week (no longer requiring a face covering for vaccinated individuals in county buildings), and Commission Chair Pete Gosar took the opportunity to comment on the county’s stagnant vaccination rate.
“It is disappointing to me, I got to tell you, knowing that more than half of our people haven’t gotten the vaccination — and are having real repercussions from this disease,” he said. “As of a couple weeks ago, the ICU was as full as it had ever been through any part of the COVID-19 pandemic in Laramie. It has gone down since then. But the one thing the hospital says is that the people who are now getting sick and dying are not vaccinated.”
The vaccines currently available are highly effective at protecting an individual from catching COVID-19, and from experiencing the worst effects of the disease. Doctors across the state say that nearly every hospitalization and nearly every death from COVID-19, at this point, could have been prevented if the patient had been vaccinated.
“The vaccine not only helps keep you from getting seriously ill and dying from COVID-19,” Allais said. “Getting vaccinated also protects the people around you, as you are less likely to transmit the infection if you do have the virus.”
But the ramifications of having such a largely unvaccinated population reach far beyond the individual and those in their immediate vicinity.
What does it mean for the county?
Those who have been vaccinated help to constrict the virus’ number of possible hosts, giving it fewer bodies in which it can replicate and mutate.
But the virus is still free to spread among the unvaccinated. The longer the virus can replicate, the greater that chance that advantageous mutations will occur — advantageous, that is, from the point of view of the virus.
Mutations that improve the virus’ ability to spread can create more dangerous variants, and Porter said it’s possible that some future variant develops the capacity to undermine the vaccine’s defenses.
“The people who are not vaccinated become petri dishes for more infectious variants and potentially more deadly variants to develop and spread,” Porter said. “It could include variants both more virulent with the non-vaccinated, but also new varieties that the people who are vaccinated won’t be protected from. It undoes the protection of those who are vaccinated, as well as puts people who are unvaccinated at higher risk.”
The vaccinated should not despair, though. Those who have gotten the jab or jabs are very effectively shielded from getting COVID-19 or experiencing its life-threatening symptoms.
“We’ve been so lucky to have Pfizer and Moderna that are almost 100% effective at preventing hospitalization and death,” Porter said. “It feels almost miraculous how good the vaccine is, how effective it is. So the people who wanted to get vaccinated are protected, at least for now, until the new variant comes along.”
One important metric for measuring the spread of COVID-19 through Wyoming has been the number of reported COVID-19 hospitalizations. The fact that nearly half the adult county population is vaccinated now means that hospitalization rates should be looked at through a new lens.
Statewide, hospitalizations have risen in the last month. After hovering between 15-25 a day for most of the spring, they have risen to between 40-60 a day in the past several weeks. Having 40-60 Wyoming residents hospitalized with COVID-19 might not stand out to someone who has been watching those hospitalization numbers throughout the pandemic. In January, that number exceeded 200, stretching Wyoming hospitals to their absolute limit.
But January saw 200 hospitalizations among an entirely unvaccinated population. June is seeing 40-60 hospitalizations among a partially vaccinated population. Simply put, the same number of hospitalizations in January and June represent different levels of spread, because the virus has a much smaller (about 30% smaller) field of possible hosts now.
“Those rates should almost always be also presented in terms of the percent of the unvaccinated population, because essentially the vaccinated population is not getting sick, and certainly not dying,” Porter said.
In Albany County, Ivinson Memorial Hospital technically has seven critical care beds. But the hospital’s intensive care capacity is actually less than that, since COVID-19 patients in the ICU also put demands on staff time and other resources.
Not all COVID-19 hospitalizations end up in the ICU, but the ICU is also needed for patients suffering all the maladies people faced in the pre-pandemic world and continue to. Between COVID cases and the hospital’s typical, but unpredictable, background rate of people needing care, one bad day can overwhelm a local hospital’s ability.
What’s to be done?
Both locally and statewide, public health officials are urging people to get vaccinated to protect themselves, their families and their communities.
Allais reiterated that vaccines are free and readily available at local clinics and pharmacies, and Albany County Public Health is planning to have a vaccination booth at the Laramie Farmers Market.
“I understand the State is discussing incentives,” she said. “In Albany County, we had ‘Shots, Brats and Brews,’ which was a successful ‘pop-up’ vaccination clinic. We worked with Coal Creek, the city, IMH and UW, and those who got vaccinated that day got a free brat, and a coffee or a beer. Discussions are underway looking at other incentive programs.”
Porter said there have been national bumps in vaccinations following the CDC announcement that vaccinated people can forgo masks in public settings and following the approval of vaccines for children aged 12-15. There will likely be another bump when vaccines are approved for those under 12 years old — something Porter said could happen toward the end of the summer.
There’s something else that could move the needle, she said.
“A concerted effort to rally community leaders, especially individual doctors, to engage in a statewide campaign of open discussion where people who are worried about getting the vaccine have someone they trust who can provide answers without being judged,” Porter said. “And have the vaccine available at the same time, so if they decided they did want the vaccine, they could get it right away. Some individual doctors may be choosing to do that, but there’s no state effort in that regard.”
Albany County, like the rest of the country, is privileged in that vaccines are plentiful, free and easy to acquire for everyone 12 and older. Most countries, and especially poorer nations, are months or years away from reaching that point, given what the World Health Organization Director called a “shocking imbalance in the global distribution of vaccines.”
But it could be a while before even half the population of Albany County takes advantage of that freedom.
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