Coronavirus Vaccine Slow to Reach Rural America, Even Seniors

Rural U.S. residents may be waiting weeks to receive COVID-19 vaccines even though health officials have started distributing shots to residents of long-term care communities, reports Fox Business . This is despite the fact that long-term care community residents face the highest death rates from the virus. Data from Johns Hopkins and the COVID Tracking Project indicates that less than 2 percent of positive COVID-19 cases lead to death throughout the general population, but that rate tops 12 percent in long-term care communities. Moreover, a Wall Street Journal analysis found that the top 25 U.S. counties with the highest per capita COVID-19 cases in the past two weeks were rural with less than 50,000 residents. The impact of delayed vaccine access in rural areas could expose those locations to added risk. Officials are concerned that rural areas have more "vaccine-averse" residents and those who remain skeptical about the pandemic. They fear a late rollout of vaccines to those regions could leave pockets of viral hot spots and delay their return to any semblance of normalcy.