As Digital Journal reported on April 15, there were strong indications that the vaccination rate in the United States would reach a plateau in late April. And it appears to be exactly what has happened.
On Friday, during a briefing of the White House pandemic response team, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), talked about the decline in the number of vaccinations being given daily – falling from a seven-day average of 3.38 million, reached on April 13, to Friday’s rolling average of 2.95 million.
The “unsettling gaps” she referred to were shown on a graphic that pinpointed parts of the Deep South, the Midwest, and the Intermountain West, where there is very light vaccine coverage. She is particularly concerned about people 65 and older because the coronavirus tends to hit the elderly more severely than younger people, and the average age for a COVID-19 fatality is 72.8.
“Because this virus is an opportunist, we anticipate that the areas of lightest vaccine coverage now might be where the virus strikes next,” Walensky said.
The “vaccine wall” is looming
We are reaching a point where once-scarce vaccine doses are now going unused because demand has dropped. “We have hit a wall. We’ve known this wall was coming. It’s time for West Virginia to move again with ingenuity,” West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said describing the state’s situation related to COVID-19 vaccinations, reports WBOY.com.
Like a number of states, West Virginia has plenty of vaccine doses on hand, but not enough people coming to get shots, Justice reported, Some health districts are already asking the state not to send any more first doses. And due to its efficiency in delivering vaccines, West Virginia has hit the “vaccine wall” sooner than other states, Justice explained.
Unless we get more people taking the vaccines, the nation won’t reach the 70-90 percent threshold for achieving herd immunity. The Biden administration has launched advertising campaigns aimed at white evangelicals, African Americans, and other populations that it believes have not yet fully accepted the coronavirus vaccine. But West Virginia’s governor has come up with a very unique idea -A slogan that just may work.
West Virginia’s “Beat 588 Bad” mantra
At a news conference on Wednesday, West Virginia Governor Justice lamented the 2,800 people the state had lost to the coronavirus. As for vaccinations, Justice said two-thirds of residents older than 65 have received both vaccine doses. But he didn’t stop there.
Justice explained that the total population of eligible residents, those who are at least 16 years old or older, is 1,470,000 people. About 51 percent of those people have received the first dose of coronavirus vaccine, with 37 percent being fully vaccinated.
He began thinking out loud, saying “The 51% number, we need to get that to 70. Now, if we can get that to 70, we’ll be there. We’ll be there,” said Justice. “We want the age 65 and older to go to 85%. I think right now, we’re at 77% right now.”
“Now, what we’ve gotta do is we gotta get our kids on board. We gotta get that 16-to-35 year of age on board, and really then, we start really moving this 50.9% and heading towards 70. When we get to 70, these masks, and all this stuff, will be a memory.”
Someone off-camera asked the governor about the 40 percent of residents who did not want to be vaccinated. “At 1.47 [million] total eligible people in the state of West Virginia, if you’re right and 40% of ’em, 40% of ’em…will not take the shot to be vaccinated, I think that number is…588,000 people. I think that number is, is 588,000 people are refusing to take the vaccine,” said Justice, as he worked out some back-of-the-napkin math.
“That can’t be right. There’s no way it can be right. Because if that’s right, I mean, to be perfectly honest, we’re putting vaccines in somebody’s arm every day, you know. But, if that number’s right, we’re at the end of the rainbow.”
And this “Aha moment” is when Justice came up with his slogan, and it is a good one.
“The note to myself is just this. And, it was ‘BEAT 588 BAD,’” said Justice, as he held up his all-caps scrawl. “My goal now is going to be ‘BEAT 588 BAD,’ because if we don’t, we’re not gonna get rid of these masks. It’s gonna be really, really, really tough, and our experts are gonna be hesitant, and hesitant and hesitant.
“I want the masks gone, but, absolutely, we can’t stand 40% of our folks not wanting to take the vaccine.”
