Rural America Reminded To Get Vaccinated This Holiday Season

Rural vaccination rates against COVID-19 are behind those among urban residents. Dr. C.K. Babcock is a Clinical Associate Professor at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia. He says data from September shows that rural residents are still getting hit hard by COVID-19.

“Rural areas have been hit really hard, and part of that is because of their fear of vaccination. We have a lot of people that are afraid to do it, and I’m from a rural area, and I understand that there's people out there that are scared. I know that our rural areas have been hit really hard. There's about 35 percent of rural Americans that are unvaccinated; that actually counts up to about 10 percent more than urban counterparts. Without question, vaccination is the most important thing we can do. However, don't forget common sense, to washing your hands, wearing a mask when you're indoors, or in a mask on other people. Common sense goes a long way. And the vaccine’s wonderful – it’s going to help us prevent severe disease – using common sense is going to help too.”

It’s especially important, Babcock noted, to get vaccinated for the upcoming holiday season.

“Getting vaccinated is vitally important. The more people are vaccinated, the less chance we have of spreading it, the less people can get severe disease, so the less people end up in a hospital. That's what's really important. It'd be wonderful to get to 100 percent vaccination; we get everybody vaccinated, we could probably get out of this mess and get back to almost normal. It would be amazing. We really want to protect all these people we love. Wearing the masks, again, is vitally important, and we want people to do that to be safe. Indoors, if you're around other people wear a mask if it's somebody it's not in your trusted circle.”

Babcock, a West Virginia University graduate, says it’s about protecting yourself and your community.

“Somewhere between 70 and 80,000 Americans everyday are getting infected with COVID, even today in November of 2021. We also have 1,000 people every day that are still dying from COVID; 1,000 to 1,100 people a day are dying from COVID. And those are real numbers and they're happening every day, and we want all of our friends, all of our family, we want all the people in our lives to be protected from that. Shoot, even the people you don't like, you don't want to get COVID. It’s how we should be as Americans. Getting the vaccine reduces the chances you can spread it, so it reduces the chances you could give somebody a life-ending disease. I think that's enough for most of us, because most of us don't want that to happen to our friends, our family, or our loved ones.”

Even with breakthrough cases, Babcock said the vaccine is still very safe and effective.

“With the breakthrough cases, it's still much better. There is a ten-fold chance that you will end up hospitalized if you hadn't been vaccinated compared to the people who have been. You have ten times more of a chance of being in a hospital if you haven’t been vaccinated. There's a five percent chance that you'll get COVID, but remember, the people that have been vaccinated usually get the sniffles. They usually don't have that bad of a problem. There's also a, I believe it's ten-fold chance of death. Your chance of death is 10 times higher than that of the people who have been vaccinated. The numbers go without saying; you cannot dispute the numbers.”

Visit the CDC's Vaccine Website for more information and to find out where to get vaccinated.

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