Floyd County wants to know, will you get the vaccine?

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

To help plan for distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available, Floyd County is asking county residents to share their views about the vaccine in a brief online survey.

The survey is available at www.surveymonkey.com/r/HCDJY3F or by clicking the link at the Floyd County Public Health Facebook page, FloydCOIAEMA, or clicking the link at the Floyd County website, floydco.iowa.gov.

“Your responses will assist Floyd County Public Health and Floyd County Emergency Management for vaccine planning,” said Gail Arjens, Floyd County Public Health administrator.

“Floyd County Public Health will not collect any identifiable information and your answers will be anonymous,” she said.

The form has only three questions:

• What is your age? (with five ranges for the possible answer.)
• What is your gender?
• Do you plan to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available? (with possible answers yes, no, and if no, why?)

The number of new COVID-19 cases per day in Floyd County continues to decline after setting records in November. The positivity rate — the percentage of people being tested for COVID-19 who test positive, over a rolling period of 14 days — was higher than 30% from Nov. 10 through Dec. 6.

That rate has been falling steadily since Dec. 6, and was 14.8% on Monday, with a total of 1,197 cases having been identified in the county since the start of the pandemic, and a total of 25 deaths with the addition of three more deaths in the county since Friday.

The positivity rate has still not fallen to where it was before the latest spike that began in late October.