<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2021/4/1617718187564.png" alt="Linda Findley' stands in her husband Robert Findley's auto body shop in Ft. Scott, KS. Robert Findley fell on the ice during a winter storm and delayed care because of the distance to a hospital led to Robert's death. Christopher Smith/For Kaiser Health News" />
 <figcaption>Linda Findley' stands in her husband Robert Findley's auto body shop in Ft. Scott, KS. Robert Findley fell on the ice during a winter storm and delayed care because of the distance to a hospital led to Robert's death. Christopher Smith/For Kaiser Health News</figcaption>
 </figure>By SARAH JANE TRIBBLE <a href="https://www.kcur.org/health/2021-04-01/it-didnt-really-stick-with-me-understanding-the-rural-shrug-over-covid-and-vaccines">Kaiser Health News</a>FORT SCOTT — At 70, Linda Findley has long been active in her small town of Fort 
Scott, Kansas, which sits more than an hour away from any major city.Findley, whose husband <a href="https://khn.org/news/podcast-where-it-hurts-no-mercy-fort-scott-kansas-air-ambulances-emergency-care-rural-hospital-closes/" target="_blank">died in an accident</a>
 just after the local hospital closed, helps with the Elks and 
fundraising, and — like many people in this part of the country — 
doesn’t think COVID-19 is that dangerous.“I don’t even know what I
 think about it,” Findley said recently. “I don’t know if I trust the 
testing because it’s so messed up or … I’ve had nieces and nephews, 
that’ve had it. I’ve lost good friends to it, or supposedly it’s to 
that.”Findley said she just isn’t sure that every case reported 
as the coronavirus really is the virus: “Everything seems to be 
coronavirus. I mean, it’s just … no matter what somebody has, it’s 
coronavirus. I don’t know whether it is or isn’t.”Fort Scott is one of <a href="https://www.shepscenter.unc.edu/programs-projects/rural-health/rural-hospital-closures/" target="_blank">nearly 140 rural communities</a> that have lost a hospital in the past decade. Mercy Hospital Fort Scott closed in December 2018.Even
 though critically ill patients now must travel to hospitals farther 
away, Fort Scott residents haven’t seen that as a pandemic-related 
problem. Rather, not having a hospital doesn’t really come up when 
people here talk about COVID.Dave Martin, the former city manager, is pretty sure he caught COVID at work last August.“You
 know, when I got it, I was in good health and it did take me a while to
 recover,” Martin said. “I do remember waking up one of my bad nights 
and thinking, when I was running a temperature and not feeling very 
well. And I’m thinking, ‘Oh, wow, this could kill me.’”But Martin
 also thought that any number of unpredictable events could end a 
person’s life. “So it didn’t really stick with me,” he said.After
 recovering, the 62-year-old Martin went ahead with his retirement. He 
took his wife to Disney World and then they hiked Yellowstone National 
Park.That casual attitude toward the dangers of COVID worries 
health care leaders in Fort Scott. Jason Wesco helps lead the regional 
health center that took over primary care services when the hospital 
closed. One clinic occupies part of the same building that used to be 
Mercy Hospital.Wesco said his family is careful about wearing 
masks and not gathering in groups, and he believes they are in the 
minority in the area.“I think most people just keep going. They 
have maybe modified a little bit. Maybe they put on a mask in public,” 
Wesco said. “I think life here has changed a lot less than it’s changed 
in D.C. And I think we’re seeing the impact of that, right?”The pandemic hit the area hard in the fall, peaking in late December.One in 11 people in Bourbon County, where Fort Scott is the largest community, has been infected by COVID, according to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/bourbon-kansas-covid-cases.html?action=click&amp;module=covid_tracking&amp;pgtype=Interactive&amp;region=TableRowLink" target="_blank">national analysis</a>.Two
 dozen of the county’s 14,000 residents have died of COVID. And most 
people know someone who had the virus and survived — but residents just 
seem tired of talking about it.Community volunteer Findley said she won’t get a vaccine.“How did they come up with a vaccine that quickly? And how do they even know for sure it’s even working?” Findley wondered.The
 three vaccines approved by federal regulators in the U.S. are being 
given out to millions, and their efficacy has been shown through massive
 clinical trials in the U.S. and globally.But Findley’s 
skepticism is fairly common in southeastern Kansas and across rural 
America. Nationwide, a smaller share of rural residents say they will 
definitely get a COVID shot compared with their more urban counterparts.
 More than a third, 35%, of those who live outside big-city borders said
 they would probably not or definitely not get vaccinated, compared with
 about a quarter of suburban and urban residents, according to <a href="https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-finding/vaccine-hesitancy-in-rural-america/" target="_blank">a poll</a> by KFF. (KHN is an editorially independent program of the foundation.) An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll found that <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2021/03/12/976172586/little-difference-in-vaccine-hesitancy-among-white-and-black-americans-poll-find" target="_blank">47% of Trump supporters</a> said they would not get a vaccine; <a href="https://apps.npr.org/elections20-interactive/#/states/KS/P" target="_blank">75% of Bourbon County residents</a> voted for Trump in 2020.Factors
 such as age and occupation also play a role in attitudes toward the 
vaccines. And — as Findley and others in Fort Scott noted — rural 
Americans are more likely to think of getting a vaccine as a personal 
choice and believe the seriousness of COVID is exaggerated in the news.Findley
 said she believes that there is a very bad virus, but also that the 
media have brainwashed people. The news has “everybody running scared,” 
she said. “I don’t know why they want to do that, but that’s what I feel
 like.”About 50% of rural residents say the seriousness of the 
coronavirus is generally exaggerated in the news, according to the KFF 
poll. And 62% see getting the vaccine as a personal choice — rather than
 a necessary social obligation.Wesco, executive vice president of
 the Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas, said he has hope more 
area residents will begin to see the vaccines as necessary.“There’s hesitancy,” Wesco said, adding that he believes hesitancy is declining as vaccines become more abundant.When
 residents are directly provided the opportunity to get a vaccine, they 
consider it more seriously, he said. And the more people they know who 
have gotten a vaccine, the more likely they will be to get a shot.The
 Community Health Center, like other health centers nationwide, is 
receiving direct federal shipments of vaccines. Currently, the clinic 
has a waitlist and is giving out as many doses as it can get its hands 
on.Sarah Jane Tribble is reporter and host of “<a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/915395193/where-it-hurts#:~:text=Where%20It%20Hurts%20Place%2Dbased,Louis%20Public%20Radio." target="_blank">Where It Hurts</a>,”
 a narrative podcast created by Kaiser Health News and St. Louis Public 
Radio about the people of Fort Scott and how their health care 
transformed after the hospital closed. “Where It Hurts” is available 
wherever you get your podcasts.

Understanding the rural shrug over COVID and vaccines