On Friday’s broadcast of APTV’s “Capitol Journal,” Alabama State Health Officer Dr. Scott Harris reacted to the state’s low vaccination rate, one of the lowest rates in the country according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data.
An exasperated Harris told host Don Dailey that he was not sure what else he could do to increase the rate.
“I mean, that’s what we spend all of our waking hours talking about,” he said. “You know, I’m not sure what else we can do. We have really tried to get the messaging out there. We’ve tried to get other people to be proxies for us, who are local officials or local members of the community, who are trusted voices for those communities. We’ve done all kinds of celebrity-type endorsements. We’ve tried to do incentives to the extent Alabama law lets us do that. There are just a lot of people who are determined not to take the vaccine, and it’s really an unfortunate situation.”
Harris was also asked about Gov. Kay Ivey’s position on incentivizing vaccinations, to which he said he was in agreement with Ivey.
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“I agree with the Governor that the vaccine is widely available, that people do need to take personal responsibility,” Harris added. “I don’t think the state has a way to incentivize people directly, although we certainly encourage businesses and private organizations to do that. There are many groups that are reaching out to their own constituencies and trying to incentivize people. I think that’s a great idea, whatever we can do.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly, and host of Mobile’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 9 a.m.-12 p.m. on FM Talk 106.5.
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