Even as Kansas remains far from reaching the coveted public health standard of herd immunity against COVID-19 — essentially starving off the virus because it runs out of vulnerable bodies — more than 60 counties just turned down their weekly allotment of vaccine doses.
Not long ago, local health officials struggled to get enough doses for people clamoring for protection in a pandemic. Now they’re straining to get people willing to take their shots — and sorting out how to make the most of doses given out to smaller groups.
Consider Barton County in central Kansas. It’s named for Clara Barton, the founder of the American Red Cross. So far, it’s given at least one dose of the vaccine to about 30% of its adults compared to 36.4% across the state.
“Herd immunity is great and 80% sounds wonderful,” said Karen Winkelman, a nurse and the Barton County health director. “But I don’t think we would ever reach that.”
She’d be happy if half the adults in Barton County got vaccinated. Herd immunity typically requires that more than three-fourths of a population get protected against a virus.
If counties like Barton plateau in that 30 to 50% range, experts typically worry that the community remains vulnerable to sickness, to overwhelmed hospitals and to avoidable deaths.
“That’s a problem,” said Dennis Kriesel, the executive director of the Kansas Association of Local Health Departments. “Everyone would agree 30% is not going to do it.”
Settling for lower immunization rates, he said, invites more waves in the deadly pandemic.
“It would mean that we would still have a great likelihood that COVID is going to stay present in the community,” Kriesel said.
The 50% of a county that’s vaccinated will experience more freedom to socialize without masks or to eat at indoor restaurants.
“But on the flip side, with so many people that are unvaccinated, if (COVID-19) stays and takes root and continues to spread, that’s what develops the variants, because these things are mutating,” Kriesel said. “They’re always mutating.”
Barton County isn’t alone. This week, 62 counties declined their weekly allocations of vaccines from the state.
On weekly calls with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, Winkelman said, “there has been talk of that very thing. … ‘Do you feel like you’ve saturated your community?’ ‘Maybe.’”
Cheyenne, Decatur, Lane, Phillips, Sheridan, and Woodson Counties have skipped their allocations for the past four weeks. Their immunization rates range from roughly 26% to 32%.
Demand for vaccinations is stagnating. A spokesperson for Gov. Laura Kelly said that Kansans may feel less threatened by the pandemic after a steady drop in infections, hospitalizations and deaths.
