These two Missouri counties have the highest COVID infection rate in the U.S.
Two Missouri counties have the highest rates of COVID-19 infection in the country.
Livingston and Linn counties, northeast of Kansas City, topped the list of the most cases per 100,000 residents in the past week, according to a New York Times analysis.
Linn County health administrator Krista Neblock said the health department began seeing an uptick in positive cases in mid-May.
“We had a lot of cases that were being seen in clinic and then we tried doing mass testing, which is the recommended protocol whenever you do see an increase in numbers,” she said.
The increase in cases was exacerbated as more gatherings took place with high school senior trips, graduation and Mother’s Day happening in quick succession.
Health officials said vaccine hesitancy has also been a major challenge.
In Missouri, 42.3% of the population has initiated vaccination, but Linn County lags behind the average at 34.5% while Livingston County sits at 34.3%, according to state data.
“We do have a subset of our population that are just not interested in getting it right now,” Neblock said.
She expects that to change, however, once vaccines are fully approved by the FDA. Currently, the three available vaccines have emergency use authorization.
Last month, the Pfizer vaccine was expanded to those ages 12 to 15, but Neblock said there has not been much interest.
Not only have residents not shown interest in having kids vaccinated, she said: “We’ve actually had the opposite — we’ve had people that have called in and said they didn’t want their kids to get it.”
Earlier this month, the Delta variant was also found to be circulating in Linn County (The World Health Organization recently adopted using letters of the Greek alphabet rather than the Pango lineages previously used).
“We had a perfect storm of people getting together, not vaccinated and a more contagious strain going through our community all at the same time,” Neblock said.
The health department, she said, will continue providing education and promoting the vaccine, and continue to have doses available over the summer.
In neighboring Livingston County, health administrator Sherry Weldon said there were several days in March and April when no new cases were reported. But similarly to Linn County, gatherings ramped up while vaccination slowed.
“The fact that we don’t have very many people vaccinated has not helped our mission at all. We have a lot of vaccine hesitancy,” Weldon said. “There’s a lot of unrealistic fears and unfounded fears.”
Weldon also attributed the jump in cases to a group of international workers that returned to the community and the presence of the Alpha and Delta variants.
The health center in Chillicothe offers walk-in appointments for any of the three vaccines on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
“We sure think that would solve a lot of problems if we had more people vaccinated,” Weldon said.
This story was originally published June 7, 2021 at 2:59 PM.
