Lagging Vaccination Rates Among Rural Seniors Hint At Brewing Rural-Urban Divide

Chris Reimer had never heard of Leopold, Mo., when he found himself rushing down a winding, two-lane road toward the rural, 65-person community in February.

Reimer, a social media manager in St. Louis, had made a split-second decision when he saw a local television reporter tweet about a 2,000-dose vaccination clinic opening to anyone after 3 p.m. that day.

"I jumped in the car and started driving south," Reimer says, though the clinic was two hours away in Leopold. "I definitely saw other cars [on the interstate highway] and thought to myself, 'I wonder if they're going the same place I am?' because we were all driving perhaps a little too quickly."

Reimer arrived just before the clinic's 5 p.m. cut-off time, and says he was thrilled when National Guardsmen running the clinic filled out his vaccine card.

"This is really happening! I am getting the vaccine," he recalls thinking, along with a pang of guilt. At 50 years old, Reimer didn't belong to any priority groups eligible for vaccination at that time in Missouri.

The Bollinger County Health Center, which put on the event with the