Mecklenburg hits a COVID vaccine milestone. What it means for herd immunity
Mecklenburg County surpassed a hopeful milestone in the year-long coronavirus pandemic Wednesday: more than 100,000 county residents have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.
As of Wednesday morning, roughly 9.2% of Mecklenburg County residents, or 101,651 people, have been fully vaccinated, according to state data released Thursday. That means they either have had one injection of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, or two injections of either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
And nearly 15% of Mecklenburg’s population has been partially vaccinated, meaning they have gotten the first injection of the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines.
The total number of vaccines administered in Mecklenburg is likely even higher — the NC DHHS numbers report vaccinations by the recipients’ county of residence. But Mecklenburg has reported vaccinating a number of people traveling from outside county lines.
The milestone in what local doctors have called a race to vaccinate comes roughly three months after the Charlotte area saw its first coronavirus vaccine. That first shot went to Atrium Health infectious disease expert Dr. Katie Passaretti on Dec. 14.
Meck wants more people vaccinated
Mecklenburg is the second N.C. county to pass the 100,000-person benchmark, following Wake County, which has fully vaccinated 138,268 residents, 12.4% of the county’s population.
But Mecklenburg still lags behind the state’s percentage of residents vaccinated. Nearly 19% of state residents are partially vaccinated and nearly 12% of state residents are fully vaccinated.
“We are not where we’d want to be,” Mecklenburg Public Health Director Gibbie Harris said. “We’d like to be further along. We’d like to see more people vaccinated.”
Harris said the discrepancy could be in part due to a large number of North Carolinians traveling to Mecklenburg from other counties to get vaccines, drawn to mass vaccination events.
Herd immunity
The rising percentage of people fully vaccinated against COVID-19 is a hopeful sign. But the community is still a long way off from herd immunity, according to local health leaders.
Herd immunity refers to the idea that once a large majority of the population is vaccinated, those people will stunt the spread of the coronavirus and provide protection for people unable or unwilling to get the vaccine.
The threshold for herd immunity in the Charlotte area could range between 70% to 85%, Harris Thursday. The county still is still “a ways from that,” she said.
“I don’t know that we’ll ever have a cut point in time where we say (the pandemic is) over,” Harris said. “But I think there will come a time when we are much more comfortable than we are... I think it’ll be a while though. And even initially if we see our numbers go down further, we know how quickly they can come back up.”
Nearby counties’ vaccination rates
The percentage of residents vaccinated in Mecklenburg — with an estimated population of roughly 1.1 million — is comparable to much smaller surrounding counties like Union and Cabarrus.
Union County has fully vaccinated 9.2% of its population (22,087 people) and Cabarrus has fully vaccinated 8.9% (19,252 people).
Other nearby counties, including Iredell and Catawba counties, have vaccinated a larger percentage of their respective populations — although the total number of fully vaccinated people is still much smaller than in Mecklenburg.
Iredell County has fully vaccinated 10.9% of its population (19,870 people) and Catawba has fully vaccinated 11.8% (18,905 people).
Gaston County has fully vaccinated has fully vaccinated 10.2% of its population, 22,854 people. And Lincoln County has fully vaccinated has fully vaccinated 10.2% of its population, 8,813 people.
Vaccine eligibility
Thousands of people became eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine in North Carolina this week, as the state saw an increase in the availability of vaccines.
The influx of vaccines is due in part to the newest vaccine authorized for emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the one-injection Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
On Wednesday, North Carolina residents with chronic health conditions, like cancer, diabetes or obesity, were made eligible for the coronavirus shot.
Mecklenburg County opened up 650 new appointments Wednesday morning for anyone eligible. Those appointments were fully booked in less than five minutes, according to StarMed Healthcare, the county’s vaccination partner for the Bojangles Coliseum clinic.
North Carolina is now offering vaccines to those people with chronic health conditions, along with health care workers, residents and staff at long-term care facilities, front-line essential workers and anyone age 65 and up.
This story was originally published March 18, 2021 at 12:06 PM.
.jpg)