Gov. John Carney said the state has work to do in dealing with vaccine hesitancy in Kent County.
Carney pointed out the disparity at the weekly Covid-19 briefing.
Carney said the state’s star in terms of vaccination is Sussex County, with nearly 55 percent of its population getting at least one dose. (See graphic below). Kent has a 38 percent vaccination rate.
Sussex also has the lowest rate of new Covid-19 cases among the state’s three counties.
Carney said the state will also need to focus on vaccinating younger adults who also have low vaccination rates. Carney did not rule out incentives that are being offered by some private employers in poultry and other industries.
Despite Kent being the site of the state’s largest mass vaccination site, Dover International Speedway (now closed due to NASCAR race events), the central Delaware county ranks well below neighboring Sussex in the percentage of vaccinated residents.
Reasons for hesitancy range from minority populations being suspicious of vaccines, due to past abuses as well as Kent having a lower rate of Covid-19 cases throughout much of the pandemic than Sussex and New Castle counties.
Check out the map below from Google and its media partners that lists cases, vaccinations, and fatalities from Google and media partners. Clicking on the map will also lead to a link to figures by county throughout the nation.
Delaware also cites other measurements, such as the percentage of the eligible population that has received vaccines. That number has been about 750,000 out of the state’s population of nearly 890,000, minus the recently approved population between 12 and 16.
