Covid-19 Vaccine Access: How Rural Transit Agencies Are Helping Get the Shots in Arms – The Wall Street Journal

PORT TREVORTON, Pa.On a recent overcast morning, Lou Ann Share waited for the bus in the kitchen of her familys yellow-sided house as her daughter made waffles for her 8-year-old twins.

Ms. Share, a 66-year-old retired florist, had secured a Covid-19 vaccination appointment at a hospital 30 minutes from her home in this rural community in central Pennsylvania. But she couldnt drive herself because of chronic pain from an accident 25 years ago, and nobody else in the family could take her.

If it wasnt for Rabbit, I wouldnt be able to do this, she said, referring to Rabbittransit, a local transportation agency that is giving free rides to vaccination sites across 11 counties.

For Ms. Share and others like her, rural transit agencies are providing more than rides. They are the crucial link to long-awaited protection from the deadly coronavirus. Across the U.S., the agencies have been adapting since the start of the pandemic a year ago. When ridership fell sharply, some of the services pivoted to delivering groceries and prescription drugs. Since the vaccine rollout began, a growing number have started offering free rides, changing bus routes, hosting vaccination sites or organizing clinics on wheels to take vaccines to people.

In West Texas, more than 700 people have been vaccinated at a clinic inside Spartan Rural Public Transits new facility in the city of Levelland. In Washington state, Twin Transit teamed up with Lewis County, the United Way and Birds Eye Medical to run mobile clinics at fairgrounds, schools, fire stations and senior centers that have led to more than 2,400 vaccinations. Twin Transit ferries medical staff and equipment to clinics when needed and takes vaccine recipients to the sites in vans.

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Covid-19 Vaccine Access: How Rural Transit Agencies Are Helping Get the Shots in Arms - The Wall Street Journal