As rural counties in Pennsylvania continue to see lower COVID-19 vaccination rates than other parts of the state, three organizations have deployed a unique approach to hopefully reach more holdouts.
On the surface, there’s little about Whitfield Regional Hospital that would make it a safety net for Alabama’s sickest Covid-19 patients. It has a small ICU with eight beds, and no critical care doctors on staff. The rural hospital has spent decades focused on caring for the community surrounding Demopolis, population 7,000, in the heart of the state’s Black Belt.
In Germany, you can buy a rapid Covid-19 test at the grocery store for one euro (a little more than a dollar). In Britain, any household can obtain a pack of seven rapid tests every day for free. In Singapore, you can get a free rapid test from a vending machine. Families in Israel receive at-home rapid tests for their children to use before school. Rapid testing is commonplace in many parts of the world because policymakers recognized early on that the tests could blunt the pandemic by stopping chains of transmission. By letting people know they are infectious, rapid tests are useful even in areas with high vaccination rates and can allow for a safer return to in-person activity.
In one of the world’s largest deployments of home COVID tests, Israel is asking families to screen all children under the age of 12 before schools and kindergartens reopen on Wednesday following summer vacation.
In interviews with NBC News, individuals who were initially reluctant to get their vaccinations said nudging from family members, fears about emerging variants and having the ability to shrug off rumors about the shot were among the reasons they finally decided to roll up their sleeves, months after the shot became available.
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