Backroad churches may be key to saving Kentucky hospitals overwhelmed by COVID

Kentucky's backroad churches may be key to saving hospitals overwhelmed by COVID Public health workers are going church to church and house to house in the state's secluded valleys to dispel COVID myths, ease isolation, bring aid, and convince wary residents to get vaccinated. NPR.org

In the end it was the delta variant that drove Rose Mitchell, 89, down the winding mountain road in Smilax, Ky., to the Full Gospel Church of Jesus Christ to get the shot. Her pastor, Billy Joe Lewis, had told his congregation that, No, ma'am, a COVID-19 vaccine would not leave the "mark of the beast" nor rewrite their genetic codes. ...

Kentucky is in the midst of a COVID-19 wildfire that is sparing no part of the state; new case counts topped 4,000 a day for much of September, before easing somewhat this month. Hospital intensive care units are still at capacity in some regions, with COVID-19 patients occupying half the beds. Gov. Andy Beshear has called the situation "dire."

Across the nation, older people have been steadfast takers of the vaccines against COVID-19: About 95% of people 65 and older in the U.S. have received at least one shot. But geographic variations cloud that math. Older Kentuckians in rural hamlets far from Louisville and Lexington, for example, are trailing in vaccination, with rates as low as 55% in Wayne County, on the Tennessee state line. ...