CNN reporters returned to Van Buren last month to follow up with Carter County almost a year after publishing an article about the area’s high COVID-19 infection rates. The second article, published Sept. 9, indicates the debate has shifted and some are choosing to vaccinate, but the county still struggles.
CNN writers Elle Reeve, Samantha Guff and Deborah Brunswick connected with several residents who had personal experience with the virus. Two interviewees, Debbie Turley and Jim Rodebush, lost their spouses to COVID-19. Others, like Wayland Bland, had caught and survived it. Almost all expressed an initial reluctance or continuing refusal to get the vaccine.
CNN also examined the differences between the visits — the mask debate then versus the vaccine debate now — and found that the Delta variant, a largely unvaccinated populace and reluctance to self-isolate have made the latest wave of infections the worst yet.
Despite collective paranoia over who is sick and where they were exposed, only 27% of the county was vaccinated at the time of the article’s release. The death toll is 17 as of Sept. 16, according to the Carter County Public Health Department’s Facebook page, which is up one since the article was released. The page also listed 45 active cases at the time of writing.
Vaccination rates remain low for many reasons, including political rhetoric, uncertainty of the vaccine’s efficacy, mistrust of the government, apathy and peer pressure. More people are choosing to immunize, but the transition is slow. West Plains doctor Chris Cochran told reporters people have been getting vaccinations in secret to avoid backlash from their social circles.
Carter County Health Department director Michelle Walker spoke to Reeve and CNN on their first visit, but declined the second time due to community backlash. She read the article, though, and said it was unfortunately accurate.
“I know people don’t want to hear that,” Walker said, “but there are groups of people that are just hesitant about it (the vaccine) because they don’t know for sure if they want to take it. But there are a large group of people in this community that just will refuse — based on their political reasoning, I’m assuming.”
Politics has made discussion of COVID-19 difficult in the community.
“I just see a lot of arguing amongst people that never would have had cross words to say to each other, and it’s truly heartbreaking,” she explained.
She also identified the continuing flood of information on COVID-19 as, paradoxically, a barrier to vaccination. The CDC and other institutions are constantly learning and sharing new information on the virus, she said, but the appearance to the wider public is one of inconsistency. She hopes the FDA’s approval of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines will change people’s minds.
‘I’m hoping that with the FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine, very soon the FDA approval of the Moderna vaccine, that people will see that it’s consistent,” she said. “We are consistent with the fact that the vaccine works, that it’s preventing hospitalizations and deaths, and that’s our main focus.”