HAMILTON COUNTY, Iowa — 43 Iowa counties aren't getting extra vaccines this week and it's their own decision. None are in central Iowa, and most are in rural areas.
Local 5 spoke to Hamilton County Public Health Director Shelby Kroona on how and why vaccines are being declined
Local 5 News: Why decline a shipment of the COVID-19 vaccines for this week?
Shelby Kroona: In our county, we've noticed that there was a slowing of vaccine appointments there. People just weren't making the appointments like they had in the past weeks.
So we did some asking around and my clerical staff realized that four weeks from today is graduation in our county. So we really felt that that impacted this particular week in importance of getting the vaccine. People are trying to schedule around certain events. It's not that they don't want the vaccine, we're finding that they still really want the vaccine.
But they don't want that second dose on Mother's Day, or on Memorial Day or on graduation weekend.
Local 5: People are starting to get a little strategic about it, it sounds. So how many vaccines typically are you using in a week?
Kroona: Typically, our allocation is 300 doses. And like I said, up until this week, we were able to utilize all 300 doses very quickly. This week, not so much.
So we only accepted 100 of our 300 doses. And we will continue to monitor that every week from now on.
Local 5: And we have heard from other counties, especially in rural counties, that there is some hesitancy, maybe some reluctance within their populations about the vaccines. Are you experiencing any of that with the folks you serve?
Kroona: We've done a couple pop-up clinics in very targeted communities. We're trying to spend more time doing pre-education and education within pockets of our county, and in Webster City in particular with some of our Hispanic and our Laotian populations.
So we see a little bit of hesitancy. But we're hoping that with this pre-work that we're doing that in a few weeks, they'll be willing to accept those vaccines.
Local 5: What is it that you're seeing in people that's making them hesitant? And then how do you specifically combat that?
What what's the message that you're trying to give to people?
Kroona: Our messages is that the vaccine is safe, and it's important for your community and for your elders, especially in the Laotian community.
We're finding probably our biggest barrier is accessing Laotian interpreters. We have a few in our community, we have some very outstanding leaders in those communities. And we're trying to educate them first, and then let them educate the rest of their community.
Local 5: Do you expect that you will keep this lower demand going? Or do you think that you'll eventually have to start accepting more of those doses when people start picking up again?
Kroona: Well I would hope we'll be able to accept more. In May, we're going to be doing some additional outreach to our doctor's offices and getting them some vaccine allocation to them. So they'll have it when somebody comes in for the doctor's appointments.
We're really hoping that Hy-Vee and CVS and Thrifty White that are in our communities will also see an uptick. I think once people realize that it's available at more places than just our mask limits we might see some more increase in vaccine.
We're at 32%, which is pretty good for right now. But I know we need to get higher than that.
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Watch: Gov. Kim Reynolds COVID-19 press conference (April 21, 2021)