LaGrange County struggles to get shots into arms

 

LAGRANGE, Ind -- It's been months since the vaccine shot became available for the state of Indiana, but the Lagrange County residents are still refusing to get the shot.

While sitting in last place for county vaccination percentage, Lagrange County has vaccinated less than 10,000 of their 50,000 residents.

Of the 50,000 residents, county health officer Dr. Tony Pechin, believes the Amish community is majority of the reason for the low vaccinate rates in the county.

"We have historically had poor vaccination rates in our Amish population for children’s vaccines and flu vaccines and every other vaccine as far as that goes." said county health officer Dr. Tony Pechin.

There are a few factors that play into other's who are not getting the vaccine such as the location of the health department's clinic in Howe, IN and that the clinic is only open one day a week.

For those who are in favor of receiving the vaccine, those two things happen to be a large reason in regards to why they haven't received the shot, but Dr. Pechin believes it's worth the obstacles.

"You know the more people that get vaccinated the safer our community is from both this variant of the coronavirus but also future variants of the coronavirus. So it’s only going to help our community if everybody gets vaccinated." said county health officer Dr. Tony Pechin.