Orleans County needs to try harder to get more people vaccinated from Covid

Editor:

Why is Orleans County’s Covid-19 two-vaccination rate of 54.29% one of the lowest in the entire United States? Only Alabama (51%), Arkansas (54%), and Idaho (54%) are worse.

I think the Orleans County Health Department could be doing more to educate people and get them vaccinated.

On July 6, 2021, President Biden said, “Now we need to go community by community, neighborhood and oft times door to door – literally knocking on doors to help the remaining people.” This Covid education program was endorsed by Anthony Fauci of Health and Human Services and the CDC in Atlanta.

Since August 2021, 17 states have adopted this program and gone door to door. Among them are Idaho, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Vermont, Colorado, Oregon, Tennessee, and Montana.

The CDC will also provide money to any local jurisdiction to pay for the door to door campaign.  The program is called the “ELC-Enhancing Detection, Expansion and Immunization CoAg Covid-19 Funding Supplementals.” With a little effort the County Health Department could have its share of the $1.9 billion set aside for counties like Orleans to help them go door to door.

When polio was a serious problem in the 1940s and ’50s, March of Dimes volunteers in Orleans County went door to door teaching people how to prevent it and encouraging them to get their children vaccinated.

I ask the County Administrator, the head of the Health Department and the Chairwoman of the County Legislature why Orleans County has not asked for the ELC money and more importantly, why a door to door campaign has not be implemented?

A reasonable way to respond to this letter, would be via this online newspaper.

Jack Capurso, Albion High School Class of 1960

Ashburn, Va.