Authorities set up a mobile center at a fair in Missouri to boost vaccinations. Nobody showed up.



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St. Charles County, Missouri Department of Health officials said they were disappointed after no one showed up at a mobile Covid-19 vaccination center offering vaccines to those attending an annual fair local this week.

The St. Charles County Fair kicked off Tuesday at Rotary Park in Wentzville, a suburb of St. Louis. Participants were fortunate enough to receive the Pfizer / BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson vaccine Tuesday and Friday between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., according to county health officials.

After spending two days at the fair, workers at the mobile vaccination site did not vaccinate a single person.

“It’s disappointing,” Nick Kohlberg of the St. Charles County Health Department told NBC affiliate KSDK in St. Louis.

Kohlberg and other local health officials hoped the annual fair would help boost vaccinations amid an increase in Covid-19 cases, driven by the highly contagious delta variant.

A total of 569,796 cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Missouri on Saturday. At least 13,193 of the positive cases have been reported in the past 7 days. Only 41 percent of the state’s population is fully immunized.

Officials said the delta variant is believed to be responsible for much of the spread in the state, particularly in the southwest and northern regions as well as in rural areas.

Less than a quarter of the population of several rural Missouri counties is fully vaccinated, according to the state health department. With 45% of the population fully vaccinated, St. Charles County, where the fair was held, is the county with the highest percentage of residents who have received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

However, the St. Charles County Health Department said 823 confirmed cases of Covid-19 had been reported in the past two weeks, more than double the number of previously reported cases.

“Every vaccination counts right now,” Sara Evers, acting director of the St. Charles County health department, told KSDK.

Kohlberg said the department will continue to “do its best to reach as many people as possible.”

They have another one scheduled for Friday.

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