June 17, 2021: Come on, Wheeler!

The Oregon Health Authority has a whole bunch of gorgeous charts and graphs on which they count all things virus and vaccine.  Six counties are more than 65% vaccinated, and another 15 are more than 50% vaccinated.  And then there’s Wheeler County, nudging right up to 50%, but stalled out at 49.6%

I’ve started watching Wheeler as if it were a longshot horse on which I’d placed a bet.  Wheeler could come from behind! In order to reach 65% of its population vaccinated, in order to leap into the seventh slot, Wheeler needs only 189 denizens to step up to the needle. SO CLOSE!

And yet, so far!

Yes, Wheeler is at 49.6%, and yes, 189 people would vault them up to 65%, so YES, very few people live there, and I won’t make you do the math: Wheeler is home to 1,226 souls, all told.

And things are not moving swiftly, vaccine-wise. Every single county in Oregon saw more vaccinations this week than in the seven days previous. Hooray! No county had a falling vaccination rate. Hooray, again! But Wheeler’s increase was the smallest of all, just .2%.  I don’t know anybody in Wheeler County, but if I knew twelve folks, I’d know one percent of the whole crew, so last week, only a couple of humans managed to get a shot.

Out of sheer curiosity, I looked up the income in every Oregon county, and per capita, Wheeler is 32^nd, out of 36 counties. But that’s per capita; in median household income, it’s dead last. It’s also the least populated county. The county seat is Fossil. The other two communities are Mitchell and Spray.

Wheeler County is home to the Painted Hills, which are wondrous, and which I now want to drive out and admire again. There aren’t any Walgreen’s in Fossil, Mitchell, or Spray. So I’m thinking of the folks in Wheeler, and wishing them well, and hoping they can trek the 83 miles from Mitchell to The Dalles.

It’s interesting that OHA has grouped together all the counties that have vaccination rates above 65%. There’s nothing magic about 65%. The governor is trying to get the entire state over 70% before reopening everything, and I wish her luck with that, but I have no idea how long it will take, or if Multnomah, Washington, Benton, and Hood River are populous enough to pull the whole state up. Right now, 70% looks like a stretch goal. 

But Lane County is at 64.9%, and it could get into that top over-65 group before Wheeler, if 416 people get a shot. Our elderly friends in Florence (Lane County) got their first shots this week, and boy, were we relieved! Rick had been gently bugging them for months. They are actually the last adults in our friend group to get vaccinated, or, if there are others, they are keeping mum.