Speaker 1: Down would be good with me. Did your son rocking
Speaker 1: chair or straight chair? And I got support whatever chair
Speaker 1: you don't want. You know, I love a good rocking chair.
Speaker 1: I'm in Bradley County, Arkansas, a little community of just
Speaker 1: over ten thousand people in the southeastern part of the state.
Speaker 1: It's best known for the tall, skinny pine trees that
Speaker 1: line the roads here and a variety of pink tomato.
Speaker 1: I'm talking with Greg Reap. I grew up here. Um
Speaker 1: so I've been here all my life other than little
Speaker 1: college time and uh and I got started at a
Speaker 1: young age. I got a chance to be in the intern,
Speaker 1: literally in the mayor's office here. Greg is sort of
Speaker 1: famous in these parts. He started his career writing grants
Speaker 1: at city hall in the county seat Warren. He worked
Speaker 1: to get roads paved and sewer systems installed in the
Speaker 1: poorer parts of town. In the seventies, at thirty one,
Speaker 1: he became mayor, a position he held for nearly two
Speaker 1: decades until he left for a brief career in the
Speaker 1: Arkansas State Legislature. Bradley is still a dry county, and
Speaker 1: the most hopping place is Molly's Diner in downtown Warren.
Speaker 1: Where neighbors catch up over fried bologny sandwiches and grits.
Speaker 1: It's the kind of place where being mayor means you
Speaker 1: literally know everyone. We're sitting in Greg's son's downtown art gallery.
Speaker 1: Greg can't help but regale me with a little bit
Speaker 1: of local history. The county, he explains, was named for
Speaker 1: Captain Hugh Bradley, an early settler of this part of
Speaker 1: the state, and the town has long been thought to
Speaker 1: be named for one of bradley slaves. A few years ago,
Speaker 1: some construction workers at the county courthouse uncovered a letter
Speaker 1: that appeared to be from Bradley son and confirmed the suspicion.
Speaker 1: We found that letter where Hugh Bradley Junior fled out,
Speaker 1: said it, and it's still at the courthouse. I've been
Speaker 1: trained to give them the city to get it and
Speaker 1: you know, make some kind of permanent display in city hall.
Speaker 1: But I am here in this rural corner of Arkansas
Speaker 1: to investigate another local mystery. This one has to do
Speaker 1: with vaccines in Arkansas. We have chosen the path of
Speaker 1: personal responsibility. The state is wide open. We aren't mandating
Speaker 1: masks or vaccinations. We know what we must do and
Speaker 1: for the most part, our Kansans have done the hard work.
Speaker 1: The big task before us now is to vaccinate more Arkansas.
Speaker 1: That's Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson talking about the major challenge
Speaker 1: facing the state. This was in July and the state's
Speaker 1: vaccination rate had stalled, while the super contagious delta variant
Speaker 1: was spreading rapidly and hospitals were beginning to reach capacity.
Speaker 1: Things were starting to look very grim, But there was
Speaker 1: one bright spot. There is good news and reason for optimism.
Speaker 1: One single county had met a goal he had set
Speaker 1: for vaccination. More than of the population of Bradley County
Speaker 1: has been fully vaccinated. In the coming weeks. I expect
Speaker 1: more counties to reach that interim goal than I said,
Speaker 1: and then we can go up from there. When I
Speaker 1: heard about this, I googled Bradley County and I was
Speaker 1: kind of shocked. It's not the sort of place you
Speaker 1: would expect to be leading anywhere in vaccination rates. Bradley
Speaker 1: is not only extremely rural, but it has a size
Speaker 1: will black and Latino population, and a majority of people
Speaker 1: there voted for Donald Trump in the last election. Those
Speaker 1: are all of the demographics we know are most often
Speaker 1: associated with vaccine hesitancy in America. When Bradley hit the
Speaker 1: mark in July, other counties in Arkansas had vaccination rates
Speaker 1: of half that Bradley County was an outlier. I wanted
Speaker 1: to know why, and that is what led me here
Speaker 1: here to a creaky old rocking chair and Rob Reep's
Speaker 1: art gallery on Main Street in Warren, Arkansas, surrounded by
Speaker 1: oil paintings of local landscapes and fish and country cottages.
Speaker 1: It all starts with Greg Reep's wife, Beverly. It's been
Speaker 1: a tough few months here in the US. We waited
Speaker 1: for the vaccines, that life could get back to normal,
Speaker 1: and when the vaccine came, we got a glimpse of
Speaker 1: that for only a very brief moment. Now we're in
Speaker 1: the throes of yet another wave of the virus. Masks
Speaker 1: are back, concerts are being canceled again. It's all a
Speaker 1: little too much like the movie Groundhog Day. And one
Speaker 1: of the biggest things keeping us here in this seemingly
Speaker 1: never ending pandemic is the number of people who still
Speaker 1: do not want to get vaccinated. Right now, about a
Speaker 1: quarter of Americans eligible for the vaccine are still holding out.
Speaker 1: That number is not nearly good enough, especially with the
Speaker 1: ultra contagious Delta variant and an increasing number of cases
Speaker 1: among vaccinated people. The virus is a powerful invader, and
Speaker 1: right now they're just aren't enough of us armed to
Speaker 1: really fight back. One of the most crucial questions right
Speaker 1: now is how to get those people still holding out
Speaker 1: to finally get vaccinated. So I went to Bradley County
Speaker 1: looking for answers. I'm Bloomberg News health reporter Kristin B.
Speaker 1: Brown for the Prognosis podcast. This is Doubt, Okay, So
Speaker 1: now we're back to the story of Greg and Beverly.
Speaker 1: We both grew up here in Warren, and she was
Speaker 1: about two years younger than me, but we literally met
Speaker 1: in school, but we actually kind of got to know
Speaker 1: each other. And there was a place right down the
Speaker 1: street down here that's a truck store now, but it
Speaker 1: was a dairy coming back in those days, and that's
Speaker 1: where all the school kids hung out. Boy meets girl.
Speaker 1: Eventually they get married. Greg went into politics and Beverly
Speaker 1: became a history teacher at the local high school and
Speaker 1: middle school. Well, she went through a couple of generations
Speaker 1: of folks, you know, taught people and then talked her
Speaker 1: kids and even a few grandkids. I think before she
Speaker 1: she finally retired, Greg isn't kidding. I talked to several
Speaker 1: people and Warren who had had Beverly as a teacher themselves,
Speaker 1: and then she taught their kids. People have a lot
Speaker 1: to say about her here, about how she made history fun,
Speaker 1: and especially about her legendary week long eighth grade trips
Speaker 1: to Washington, d C. This is how Michelle Weaver, a
Speaker 1: doctor at the hospital, put it. I think everyone knows
Speaker 1: Beverly read. She was my teacher. You know, she was
Speaker 1: my daughter's teacher and my son's teacher, and we all
Speaker 1: loved her. And she took a group of students to
Speaker 1: our in DC every year, and you know, really helped
Speaker 1: mold people us into a well rounded adults. Beverly was
Speaker 1: a local icon. Two years ago she retired, and in March,
Speaker 1: she her husband, her son, and her daughter in law
Speaker 1: embarked on her dream vacation, a whirlwind five day tour
Speaker 1: of England and France and Christmas of two thousand eighteen.
Speaker 1: She sprung it on the whole family had a video there.
Speaker 1: She'd worked it out for the travel agency in the
Speaker 1: Little Rock and it's just was narrated telling us where
Speaker 1: we're all gonna go. We were all she set. They're
Speaker 1: kind of astonished she had all arranged, all done. By
Speaker 1: the time the Reef family was ready to set off
Speaker 1: on that dream vacation, COVID was in the headlines. It
Speaker 1: was spreading in China and Italy, but in much of
Speaker 1: the world it still seemed like a far off threat.
Speaker 1: The Reefs were a little concerned, but there was no
Speaker 1: guidance against traveling abroad yet. We even talked to missing
Speaker 1: medical folks around here and they said, you just wash
Speaker 1: your hands, keep everything clean. So in early March, off
Speaker 1: the Reef family went to London and Normandy and Paris
Speaker 1: and Versailles. She had a blast, and so did your
Speaker 1: son and daughter in law. And I'll have to bid
Speaker 1: Idea too. It was it was just kind of the
Speaker 1: trip of the last day. Meanwhile, in those early March days,
Speaker 1: COVID was spreading rapidly across Europe. Cases were starting to
Speaker 1: take up in the US, to new cases being reported
Speaker 1: in California, Oregon, Washington State, Rhode Island, and Illinois over
Speaker 1: the weekend. The coronavirus has now entered a devastating new phase.
Speaker 1: The trajectory consider continues to go straight up. It's going
Speaker 1: straight up. That blue passenger on a flight that was
Speaker 1: traveling from New York to Florida last night has tested
Speaker 1: positive for coronavirus. This now makes the first coronavirus death
Speaker 1: confirmed in the US. The number of affected states cases
Speaker 1: and deaths will continue to rise. The family touchdown back
Speaker 1: home on March twelve, the day after President Trump announced
Speaker 1: a thirty day travel suspension to most of Europe and
Speaker 1: the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak was officially
Speaker 1: a pandemic. I remember failing a little bit relieve when
Speaker 1: we got on the plane to you know it out
Speaker 1: and then didn't turn out some good. Later on, about
Speaker 1: a week after they returned home, Beverly started to feel sick.
Speaker 1: She was also having a little trouble breathing. So with
Speaker 1: COVID now everywhere in the headlines, they decided to go
Speaker 1: to the local hospital. Greg says Beverly didn't seem that
Speaker 1: sick to him, but her illness quickly progressed. It was COVID.
Speaker 1: She had had open heart surgery. She had to beat
Speaker 1: this anyway. I mean, she's just struggled a little bit
Speaker 1: with it. But she was up in Gunman. I mean,
Speaker 1: it wasn't you know what. She was bedfast or something
Speaker 1: like that. But we carried her to the hospital down
Speaker 1: here and they said, we'd think we'd better go ahead
Speaker 1: and get you the little walk and which is where
Speaker 1: are bigger hospitals and all they got her. She went
Speaker 1: to St. Vincent's up there and she stayed all thirty
Speaker 1: two days. I think for most of those thirty two
Speaker 1: days Beverly was on a ventilator. The family was quarantining
Speaker 1: at home. Greg and his son tested positive for COVID too,
Speaker 1: Their daughter in law, Strangely, was completely fine. No one
Speaker 1: could go and see Beverly and she was too out
Speaker 1: of it to even talk on the phone. Greg called
Speaker 1: the hospital every single day for an update. It was
Speaker 1: the most difficult thing I've ever been through in my life.
Speaker 1: And what a't evis fault that I couldn't go in
Speaker 1: and seeing her, But it just was, it was just
Speaker 1: it was torture not really knowing how bad she was.
Speaker 1: And eventually the family decided to take her off of
Speaker 1: the ventilator. Beverly's lungs weren't really working, and then her
Speaker 1: kidneys started feeling. She was in a medically induced coma,
Speaker 1: and doctors told Greg they weren't sure that she would
Speaker 1: ever wake up. Their family. Physician back and Warren pulled
Speaker 1: some strings so that Greg and his son could see
Speaker 1: her one last time. We had to put on space
Speaker 1: suits and the whole thing, but they did let us
Speaker 1: go in there and literally see her before she passed away.
Speaker 1: You know, I was still, I guess I was praying
Speaker 1: for a miracle still that when they, you know, took
Speaker 1: her off a ventilator, maybe she would start, you know,
Speaker 1: getting better or something. But it she did didn't, And
Speaker 1: I don't know, I don't know how to explain it.
Speaker 1: On Saturday, a Beverly passed away at sixty three years old.
Speaker 1: The Arkansas Times and the Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported the
Speaker 1: news of Beverly's death, touting the role she played and
Speaker 1: helping young our Kanson see more of the world outside
Speaker 1: of the state. Former students sent messages to the family
Speaker 1: about how she had touched their lives, and Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: who knew the couple from the world of state politics,
Speaker 1: called Greg with his condolences. Gregg told me that initially
Speaker 1: he blamed himself for letting the family take that trip,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't have possibly known what would happen. None
Speaker 1: of us did. It was so early in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: back before anyone was wearing face masks or social distancing
Speaker 1: or even calling it a pandemic. Beverly was only the
Speaker 1: thirty six death in Arkansas at the time of her passing.
Speaker 1: There's still weren't very many cases there at all, especially
Speaker 1: in the rural parts of the state and urban areas.
Speaker 1: People spend a lot more time in crowds moving from
Speaker 1: place to place in city to city, but in areas
Speaker 1: like Bradley County people are just more isolated. But this
Speaker 1: tragedy would have a silver lining. The impact of Beverly's
Speaker 1: death would be far greater than Greg could have ever imagined.
Speaker 1: You know, people liked her, loved her, appreciated her, and
Speaker 1: for her to die, uh and she just retired. I
Speaker 1: think it really called the attention to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: This is Dr Kerry Pennington. Like most people here, he
Speaker 1: has lived in Bradley County almost his whole life. One
Speaker 1: of his ancestors was actually a founding settler of the county,
Speaker 1: and for decades now he's been just one of a
Speaker 1: few physicians in the area. He told me, Beverly's death
Speaker 1: shook the whole county. Some people even blamed the rep
Speaker 1: family for bringing the virus to this part of the
Speaker 1: state and launched attacks at them online. But as the
Speaker 1: story of Beverly's battle with COVID spread in Bradley County,
Speaker 1: the main impact was that people started to take the
Speaker 1: virus very seriously. They had heard about Beverly's month on
Speaker 1: a ventilator and how hard it was on the Repe family.
Speaker 1: This was someone a lot of people here knew and
Speaker 1: cared about. Her story had an impact before the pandemic
Speaker 1: could become so politicized. The people of Bradley County. We're
Speaker 1: paying attention, you know, people will talk about it, and
Speaker 1: people would come in shop. And then over the next
Speaker 1: two or three months, as more people got it and
Speaker 1: more people to add, it just became more a large
Speaker 1: awareness that this was serious. Most people know what's going
Speaker 1: to own and uh, it's not like Little Rock or
Speaker 1: l A, where you know there may be sixty year
Speaker 1: seventy people die when that set of down the last week.
Speaker 1: But he was talking about Dr Pennington is why I
Speaker 1: came to Arkansas in the first place. I had read
Speaker 1: about Bradley County and called him up asking what was
Speaker 1: going on there. He told me about Beverly and said
Speaker 1: that he thought her death was a major factor and
Speaker 1: why people there were getting the shot. And then when
Speaker 1: the vaccine became available, they were aware and smart enough,
Speaker 1: I think, to realize that they need to do get it.
Speaker 1: But Beverly is really just the start of this story.
Speaker 1: When I got to Arkansas, it became clear that Dr
Speaker 1: Pennington was kind of selling his own role short. If
Speaker 1: you're trying to stop the spread of a deadly virus,
Speaker 1: there are actually some advantages to being in a rural
Speaker 1: community like Bradley County. Social distancing, of course, is sort
Speaker 1: of naturally built into your way of life, but more importantly,
Speaker 1: everyone knows each other. As we've talked about throughout this series,
Speaker 1: trust is really a single most important factor in getting
Speaker 1: people to vaccinate. Misinformation certainly doesn't help inspire people to
Speaker 1: get vaccinated, but it often isn't the root cause of
Speaker 1: someone's hesitancy. Distrust makes that misinformation seem way more believable.
Speaker 1: The pandemic has made a whole lot of people more
Speaker 1: mistrustful of what the public health establishment has to say.
Speaker 1: But if you went to high school with the local
Speaker 1: physician or the widower, but COVID victim was a chaperone
Speaker 1: on your eighth grade trip to d C, we were
Speaker 1: way more likely to believe them when they say vaccines
Speaker 1: are good. When the pandemic hit, the public health community
Speaker 1: in Bradley County immediately understood how crucial the role that
Speaker 1: they would play here was MC how's it going good?
Speaker 1: Looking for more answers. I visited the local hospital. It's
Speaker 1: really small, it only has beds there. I talked to
Speaker 1: Michelle Weaver, who we heard from earlier. She's the county
Speaker 1: public health officer and a doctor at the hospital, and
Speaker 1: she says, everyone in the medical world and Bradley really
Speaker 1: joined forces as soon as we found out about COVID.
Speaker 1: I mean, we knew that it was coming to the US,
Speaker 1: we knew it was happening. Um we myself and some
Speaker 1: others we all got together and we made it like
Speaker 1: a group. And so at first we met I hope
Speaker 1: to get but before COVID hit here, we all actually
Speaker 1: all met one room. And after that first meeting decided
Speaker 1: that was a bad plan. I didn't think so many
Speaker 1: people from the community would show up. We kind of
Speaker 1: invided everyone, but um, the superintendence of both of the
Speaker 1: schools in this county came, you know, the police officers came,
Speaker 1: the fireman came, the head of the hospital came. You know.
Speaker 1: So you know, myself is representing the physicians in the
Speaker 1: area and UM, our mayor a big part of trying
Speaker 1: to make sure we get accurate information. UM and we
Speaker 1: all met together in a room as a big group
Speaker 1: to say we're going to come together as as one
Speaker 1: and support whatever we need to support to keep our
Speaker 1: county healthy. So that's kind of where it started. Dr
Speaker 1: Weaver said she and other doctors in the area were
Speaker 1: constantly texting to make sure everyone was on the same
Speaker 1: page about everything. They started a Facebook page to update
Speaker 1: the community. She would even post videos with helpful tips,
Speaker 1: like how to handle your teenager who was sick of
Speaker 1: staying home. They actually can be around their friends, but
Speaker 1: they should not be in close proximity or in large groups. UM.
Speaker 1: If they want to have a friend and they go
Speaker 1: and they keep their distance and they go fishing. UM.
Speaker 1: Those are kind of things. And when the vaccines rolled out,
Speaker 1: there was a concerted push to get people vaccinated. When
Speaker 1: I visited the hospital, Dr Weaver told me that just
Speaker 1: that morning she had tried to convince a nurse to
Speaker 1: get the vaccine for her teen son. She didn't know
Speaker 1: whether their talk had been successful, but she said her
Speaker 1: approach is always rooted in empathy and patience, even though
Speaker 1: it's obviously really frustrating that even colleagues at the hospital
Speaker 1: were questioning vaccines. If you get angry with people, you're
Speaker 1: going to get netwhere like if you go, oh, you're oh,
Speaker 1: you're a native and that doesn't work, you know. And
Speaker 1: so I've had arguments, and I don't really call them
Speaker 1: arguments discussions. I think that two logical adults should be
Speaker 1: able to sit down and have a discussion, and I
Speaker 1: should be able to say, you know, here's the facts
Speaker 1: about vaccine. Dr Pennington and his colleague Dr Joe Wharton
Speaker 1: sent nurses to vaccinate the football team at the high
Speaker 1: school and eventually also the entire eligible student body. The
Speaker 1: local state legislator, Jeff Wardlaw, invited Dr Pennington to talk
Speaker 1: to the staff at a center for disabled adults who
Speaker 1: are highly hesitant. Greg Reep and his family spoke out
Speaker 1: in the press and the community urging people to get
Speaker 1: the vaccine, and Tyler Staton, who runs a pharmacy in town,
Speaker 1: made it his personal mission to get everyone vaccinated. He says,
Speaker 1: at first the vaccines apply couldn't match the demand, but
Speaker 1: when that initial demand waned, he started his own efforts
Speaker 1: to bring vaccines to the people. I've gone to the
Speaker 1: nursing homes. UM. I've gone to home visits to help
Speaker 1: people um that can't get out and can't get a
Speaker 1: ride to come and get a vaccine. We've gone to
Speaker 1: manufacturing plants. UM. We have a couple of hardwood flooring
Speaker 1: plants here in town. We have um uh one that
Speaker 1: create manufacturing timbers and stuff like that to their plant,
Speaker 1: and it did vaccines that go on a monthly basis
Speaker 1: to some of those places. Tyler says his governing philosophy
Speaker 1: was to make sure that people had a few excuse
Speaker 1: says as possible to not get the vaccine. I mean
Speaker 1: some people may not get off until after we close,
Speaker 1: it says, you know, and other stores, the big chains
Speaker 1: may not have availability or they may not be able
Speaker 1: to get their shot there. You know. It just I
Speaker 1: tried to be flexible because I wanted to help the community.
Speaker 1: And and that's what we've done, and all of our
Speaker 1: pharmacists have done that to fless and be able to vascinate.
Speaker 1: And it was a collaborative effort, nurses and pharmacists working together. Um,
Speaker 1: the doctors were still running their clinics, but they'd send
Speaker 1: their their nurses to come help vaccinate, and pharmacists from
Speaker 1: from the local hospital she came with help me. So
Speaker 1: you know, it was a collaborative effort between all of
Speaker 1: us to try and get people have vascinated. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I'm guessing you're starting to get the picture here. It
Speaker 1: could almost be the plot of a feel good movie.
Speaker 1: The death of a beloved small town teacher spurs the
Speaker 1: community to band together against the a to defeat the
Speaker 1: evil virus. But how does that have anything to do
Speaker 1: with the rest of us? So before I go any further,
Speaker 1: let me first just say that Bradley County is not perfect.
Speaker 1: There are still a lot of hesitant people there and
Speaker 1: the latest surge of the virus has led to rising
Speaker 1: cases there like everywhere else in the state. But still
Speaker 1: today it is among the most vaccinated counties in Arkansas.
Speaker 1: According to the CDC. So far, more than sixty seven
Speaker 1: of the population over age twelve has been vaccinated with
Speaker 1: at least one shot, and its early success in vaccinating
Speaker 1: did buck the trend of similar regions across the country.
Speaker 1: If you just looked at the demographics of Bradley, you
Speaker 1: would expect the vaccination rate to be way lower. It
Speaker 1: turned out that there were a lot of reasons for
Speaker 1: why it was doing better. It kind of did everything
Speaker 1: you were supposed to do to convince people to get
Speaker 1: a shot. I think this underscores the power that local
Speaker 1: leaders at the community level can have in in convincing
Speaker 1: people to vaccinate. This is Matt Modem, a political scientist
Speaker 1: at Oklahoma State University. We also heard from him an
Speaker 1: episode four. Now, the way you don't want that to
Speaker 1: happen is by people getting sick and potentially dying and
Speaker 1: having that be the motivator for people. But it does
Speaker 1: underscore that when there's a trusted member of the community
Speaker 1: who lots of folks know, who lots of folks like,
Speaker 1: that really hits home for people. The very personal nature
Speaker 1: of this pandemic, these personal appeals talking about the risks
Speaker 1: that one face and and the the experiences they've had
Speaker 1: with the disease can be motivating. Uh. And so when
Speaker 1: you have that happening at a local level to people
Speaker 1: that are widely known, to people that are widely trusted,
Speaker 1: you absolutely have the ability to to get people um
Speaker 1: out and vaccinating in response. I know this probably seems
Speaker 1: like common sense. Of course, it makes a difference to
Speaker 1: have local figure heads out there supporting vaccination and talking
Speaker 1: to people on a personal level. But the thing is,
Speaker 1: this just isn't happening right now in most places. Too often,
Speaker 1: when people have concerns about vaccines, instead of being taken seriously,
Speaker 1: those concerns are just brushed aside. People are just expected
Speaker 1: to be logical and do the right thing, when in fact,
Speaker 1: if you stop to think about it, there is something totally,
Speaker 1: just inherently weird about getting an injection with the genetic
Speaker 1: material of a deadly virus. Too often, the approach is
Speaker 1: to find a war of feelings with facts. People wind
Speaker 1: up feeling ignored and disrespected, like no one cares about
Speaker 1: how they feel. This can send people on the fence
Speaker 1: about vaccines right into the arms of the anti vaxers
Speaker 1: who are working hard to spread rumors and conspiracy theories.
Speaker 1: A steady erosion of trust as guidance and policies have
Speaker 1: flip flopped throughout the pandemic has exacerbated this, and in fact,
Speaker 1: some leaders have even stoked those concerns in recent months,
Speaker 1: like the governor of Missouri, who suggested in a tweet
Speaker 1: that went viral that President Biden's efforts to go door
Speaker 1: to door to get people vaccinated we're not a welcome
Speaker 1: in estate. Efforts to get local leaders out there, connecting
Speaker 1: with the commune city and promoting vaccination are just not
Speaker 1: that widespread. Here is where Bradley County offers its most
Speaker 1: important lesson. Beverly Reap's death touched everyone there. She was beloved,
Speaker 1: but it was probably what the local leaders and the
Speaker 1: medical community did after her death that helped get those
Speaker 1: shots into arms the most. I think the power, especially
Speaker 1: at the local level, of these personal appeals, finding members
Speaker 1: of the community who are willing to share their stories
Speaker 1: and then and then going public with them. I think
Speaker 1: that that's potentially a very effective way to do this.
Speaker 1: That is something every community can replicate. We know what
Speaker 1: works here, and we just aren't doing it. Tim Callahan,
Speaker 1: a rule health expert at Texas. A and M says
Speaker 1: that this has helped fuel an increase in anti vaccine
Speaker 1: content reas only we aren't necessarily seeing um widespread efforts
Speaker 1: to have those trusted messengers developed. We aren't seeing concerted
Speaker 1: efforts to have those champions out in public, to identify
Speaker 1: these champions, to fund the champions, give them the resources
Speaker 1: they need to promote vaccination, and simultaneously, over the past
Speaker 1: several months, we've seen growing anti vax ratoric as opposed
Speaker 1: to decreasing anti vax rehdor these lessons are really important
Speaker 1: right now. The delta variant is scary and how contagious
Speaker 1: it is, and that may have moved a lot more
Speaker 1: people to go and get the job, but there are
Speaker 1: still a lot of holdouts, and those holdouts will keep
Speaker 1: the virus circulating for the foreseeable future, leading to more
Speaker 1: infections among both vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike, as well
Speaker 1: as potentially new, even scarier variants of the virus. Bradley
Speaker 1: County was lucky and that all of this happened for
Speaker 1: them before COVID became so political. People there were already
Speaker 1: on board with efforts before anyone was protesting mask mandates
Speaker 1: or questioning Biden's plan to go door to door to
Speaker 1: get people vaccinated. More recently, a lot of those protesting
Speaker 1: voices have begun to change their message after months of
Speaker 1: promoting conspiracy theories and vaccine misinformation. Tucker Carlson encouraged people
Speaker 1: to get vaccinated, so did the governor of Missouri. In Arkansas,
Speaker 1: Governor Hutchinson has always encouraged people to get the vaccine,
Speaker 1: but he's been very careful to not sound like he's
Speaker 1: forcing it. His calls for action have become louder lately,
Speaker 1: but Tim says, in many places, the damage has already
Speaker 1: been done. We've fallen behind in our efforts to reach people.
Speaker 1: By following the lessons of places like Bradley County, we
Speaker 1: can definitely get more shots into arms at this point,
Speaker 1: though a radical change the way we approach vaccine messaging
Speaker 1: probably isn't enough. I think we need to recognize that
Speaker 1: a lot of the efforts that can be done from
Speaker 1: a promotion perspective, from an incentive perspective, have been done.
Speaker 1: Should promotion efforts continue, absolutely um And I think some
Speaker 1: of those promotion efforts that need to happen, they need
Speaker 1: to be more targeted. They need to be targeted at
Speaker 1: the groups that are most likely to be vaccine hesitant.
Speaker 1: Tim thinks that we might be at the point where
Speaker 1: mandates are necessary to get us to the level of
Speaker 1: vaccination that we need. Unless there's something that's going to
Speaker 1: force individuals who are not going to be motivated by
Speaker 1: promotion campaigns to vaccinate, we're going to have struggles to
Speaker 1: get to that sort of seventy percent or higher threshold
Speaker 1: in many states across the country. I asked him whether
Speaker 1: he was feeling optimistic about any of this. He said,
Speaker 1: it's a mixed bag. And the one hand, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad about the progress we've made so far.
Speaker 1: If you had told me that the start of the
Speaker 1: pandemic that by this point we would already have vaccinated
Speaker 1: over the population against the virus, that would have been incredible, right. However,
Speaker 1: you also have to realize at the same time just
Speaker 1: how far we have to go and how much harder
Speaker 1: convincing the rest of the public to vaccinate is going
Speaker 1: to be than it was to convince that first. We've
Speaker 1: in one sense, we've done the easy part. We've got
Speaker 1: everyone who is easily movable to vaccinate. Now, he faced
Speaker 1: the hard challenge of convincing the rest of individuals or
Speaker 1: forcing the rest of individuals to vaccinate. Back in Broadley County,
Speaker 1: there are still plenty of holdouts. Greg Reap told me
Speaker 1: that he has been telling everyone who will listen to
Speaker 1: go and get their shot. Once the vaccination started being
Speaker 1: made available, of course, we were urging everybody to get vaccinated,
Speaker 1: which just it just doesn't make any sense not to
Speaker 1: you care about yourself and your family. And the months
Speaker 1: since Beverly passed, Greg's son and daughter in law got
Speaker 1: pregnant with their first child. Gregg told me he's really
Speaker 1: heartbroken that Beverly won't get to meet her first grandkid.
Speaker 1: He really misses her. The past year and a half
Speaker 1: has just been unbearably hard. You know. I just want
Speaker 1: people to do everything they can do to protect themselves,
Speaker 1: and that starts with the vaccinations, and then they steal
Speaker 1: especially the things that as they are right Neil right now,
Speaker 1: need to you know, protect themselves. Where wear the mask? Ok,
Speaker 1: maybe it maybe I'll help you. But Greg says his
Speaker 1: one source of comfort is that just maybe Beverly's death
Speaker 1: had an impact. Maybe their tragedy helped to protect other
Speaker 1: people helped them decide to get their shot. Doubt is
Speaker 1: written and reported by me Kristin V. Brown. Magnus Hendrickson
Speaker 1: is our senior producer. Our theme was composed and performed
Speaker 1: by Hannis Brown. Special thanks to Rick Shine, Tim Annette
Speaker 1: and Top for Foreheads. Francesca Levie is the head of
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Podcasts. Be sure to subscribe to Prognosis if you
Speaker 1: haven't already, and if you like our show, please leave
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Speaker 1: the show. Thanks for listening. M