Get your shot
Clark County can do better than second-to-last when it comes to vaccination rates in Wisconsin.
Our residents don’t have to compete with Taylor County for the absolute bottom in this category. Despite our unique demographics and relative scarcity of health care providers, we can still do better when it comes to vaccinating ourselves against a deadly pandemic that has claimed millions of lives worldwide (including 58 in Clark County), overrun hospitals and decimated economic activity.
In fact, we need to do better if we want to get back to normal. Masks and social distancing — two things that many of us have never gotten used to — are still being recommended by the CDC and other public health officials. It can seem like a mixed message when the number of new cases has been on an overall downward trend since the beginning of the year. But the fight is not over.
As you can read on the following page, regional health officials are sounding the alarm about the spread of COVID-19 variants making their way east from Minnesota. A vaccination rate of under 40 percent is a concern for health authorities in the 18 counties who signed on to the letter. Among those counties, Clark is dead last when it comes to vaccination rates — it’s the noticeably low bar on the graph of counties in this part of Wisconsin.
We realize that a certain percentage of people will simply roll their eyes at this data and dismiss it as just another “scarce tactic” to get people to take a vaccine they don’t trust. To them, it doesn’t matter that millions of people have already been vaccinated and are living their lives in a way that is much less risky than before they were vaccinated.
Instead of trying to convince the unconvinceable, we’d like to speak to those on the fence. If you haven’t made the effort or taken the time to get a shot, now is the time to sign up for one. Demand has dropped off significantly since the vaccines were first introduced, which means time slots are opening up and waiting lists are getting shorter.
In fact, you may not even need an appointment. A series of free vaccine clinics being held at Abbotsford City Hall (the next ones are May 5 and May 12) are accepting walk-ins between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. No ID or insurance is required. Just show up.
If you’re still unsure, talk to your doctor or other trusted medical professional. Chances are, they’ll agree with the general medical consensus that vaccinations are a low-risk way of preventing the worst pandemic the world has seen in over a century.
We can do this, Clark County. We can defy the odds and lift our vaccination rate above a dismal 18 percent.
