Mobile Grand Forks COVID vaccine clinics have doled out about 700 doses so far
Jun. 28—Grand Forks Public Health staff have doled out a few hundred COVID-19 vaccine doses as the health department's meet-them-where-they're-at strategy to reach herd immunity enters its third month.
As of Saturday, June 26, health department staff had organized 45 vaccine events in Grand Forks at which they've administered a combined 719 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine — about 1.2% of all the vaccine doses administered since May, when the city government switched from a centralized system at the Alerus Center to a more spread out one that aims to hold at least one pop-up clinic within half a mile of the vast majority of Grand Forks residents.
But fewer and fewer people are opting for a vaccine. Health department data indicates that, at present, about 71 vaccine doses are administered countywide per week, a figure that's considerably lower than the 735-doses-per-week high recorded in mid-April. And, as of Monday, health department data indicates that, assuming the current pace continues, 60% of Grand Forks County residents will be fully vaccinated against the virus by June 8, 2022. That horizon has receded considerably this month: on Monday, June 21, it was April 21, 2022, and at the beginning of this month it was March of next year.
Haley Bruhn, who heads the local health department's immunization program, expects that federal regulators will approve coronavirus vaccinations for people as young as 5 by the fall. That would mean another chunk of residents who could potentially receive the vaccine, which could push the county closer and, perhaps more quickly, to herd immunity. And Michael Dulitz, the health department's lead COVID data analyst, suggested that more people could seek a vaccine when the 2021-2022 school year ramps up this August because parents who might not have otherwise received one might do so, the NCAA might require unvaccinated athletes to be routinely tested, or students might encourage one another to get their shots.
"There may be some kind of mimicking of peer behaviors," Dulitz said. "And a desire to be able to be in certain settings without having to wear masks or take precautions and things like that."
As of Sunday, June 27 — the most recent date for which data was available — 30,270 county residents had been fully vaccinated and another 1,587 had received one of two necessary doses of the Pfizer or Moderna-branded vaccine. That leaves the county 9,814 people short of the 60% threshold, which is important because it's the mark at which health department administrators hope the county will reach herd immunity, which, in a nutshell, means that there are enough immunized people here to prevent the virus from easily spreading from one non-immunized person to another.
It's unclear exactly how many people a single infected person can spread COVID-19 to, but an Imperial College London study cited by Dulitz puts that figure at about 2.5 people, assuming no epidemiological safeguards were in place, such as masks or social distancing. That figure is called "R0," pronounced "r-naught," and it's the basis for the health department's 60% goal because, in essence, if one person generally spreads COVID to another two or so people, the virus would have little figurative room to maneuver if those two people were already vaccinated.
