Hill County well below vaccination goal

At a monthly meeting of Hill County Officials Wednesday, Hill County Public Health Director and Health Officer Kim Berg said about 50 percent of the county’s eligible population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Berg said this is well below their goal of 70 percent, which is the lowest estimate for the point at which a community can achieve herd immunity for COVID-19.

She said there appear to be a number of reasons vaccination has slowed so dramatically in the county and nationwide. These reasons range from undue skepticism to apathy.

“We have a lot of people who don’t believe in it,” Berg said. “We have a lot of people who question the safety of it, and I think it’s the middle of summer and people are doing things with their family and it’s not really in the front of their mind.”

She said older age groups in the county have better vaccination rates than the younger ones, but her department is working on making the vaccine more accessible.

“I think we just have to keep educating on it, making it more available and try to make it more easily accessible,” she said.

Berg said health departments across the state and nation are offering incentives for people to get vaccinated, and she wants to implement a plan to have people in Hill County entered in a drawing if they get their vaccine.

She said these plans won’t be in place until next month at the earliest however.

Berg said the vaccine is available at the health department, Northern Montana Hospital, Bullhook Community Health Center, Gary & Leo’s Pharmacy, and Western Drug Pharmacy.

She also said as of this week the county has access to the Pfizer vaccine, the one COVID-19 vaccine that is approved for people between ages 12 and 15.

Outside of COVID-19 and being on the lookout for tick-borne illnesses the health department is doing business as usual, she said.

Hill County Commissioner Diane McLean raised the concern of toxic algal blooms in the area in the wake of the heatwave.

Berg said she hasn’t been notified of any dangerous blooms yet, but she is going to coordinate with Montana State University-Northern, which has been studying and tracking blooms.

Algae is an important part of the ecosystem but when it sees a localized population explosion it can create a toxic bloom, which is dangerous to humans and their pets.

Toxic algae, which are mostly blue in coloration, as opposed to the green variety which are mostly harmless, produce neurotoxins that can cause severe rash on contact with skin, and illness or even death if ingested.

This algae is usually easy to spot, but because water systems are dynamic, the algae can move dramatically while the toxins it produces don’t, toxins which are still dangerous.

During the meeting Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson provided an update on the commissions recent activities.

Peterson said the commission is working on making plans for how to use funds received from the American Rescue Plan.

He also said the survey for the new Milk River Levee district will likely begin next week.

The commissioners also encouraged all county employees who haven’t enrolled in a health care plan to look into it immediately.

The next Hill County Officials Meeting will be Wednesday July 21 at 10 a.m.