WEST FAIRLEE—Mailing address issues are causing West Fairlee’s COVID-19 vaccination rate to appear lower than it actually is.
The Vermont Department of Health website shows a vaccination rate between 21 and 30% for West Fairlee and a rate greater than 90% for Fairlee, with a disclaimer saying that the vaccination rate in West Fairlee may appear lower than the actual rate due to “address uncertainty.”
West Fairlee does not have a post office branch. It was displaced in 2008 when the town-owned Bean Hall was ordered closed due to structural problems. The United States Postal Service officially closed the branch in 2011.
Many homes and businesses in West Fairlee have Fairlee mailing addresses, and many residents of the town have post office boxes in surrounding towns, according to West Fairlee Selectboard Chair Delsie Hoyt.
Hoyt is also the town’s health officer, a role in which she reports to the health department. She said her town’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was similar to neighboring towns.
“We’re adhering to mask requirements. My sense is that we’re as average as average can be,” Hoyt said. “Within town, we certainly haven’t come up against some sort of resistance or glaring resistance to either the mandates that were in place or vaccination.”
The health department’s vaccine map currently shows multiple disclaimers about mailing addresses. One is at the top of the page, one is on the map itself, and one is below the map.
Although vaccination data updates every Thursday, the page containing the disclaimers was last updated on June 10.
“Please use caution when interpreting town data. There are several scenarios where vaccinations are not attributed to the correct town,” one of the disclaimers states.
In the “Data Notes” section of the page, the department says that some data may be inaccurate, as some vaccinations are credited to the town in which they occurred instead of the town in which the patient lives, and some Vermont residents may have been vaccinated in other states.
The website also notes that mailing addresses may affect data as well.
“Some people may have provided their mailing address instead of their place of residence,” the website says. “Since mailing address may be used to determine location, some town rates may be inaccurate. Some towns do not have their own zip code, and some residents of one town may have their mail delivered to another.”
The vaccine map shows dots on towns where “reported vaccination rate may be lower than the actual rate due to address uncertainty.” On the vaccine map, West Fairlee is marked with these dots.
Hoyt said the vaccine web page did not originally contain all of the disclaimers, and that she had contacted the health department when she noticed her town appeared to have a lower vaccination rate than the surrounding area.
“With the initial way the map looked, it was clear that people were not bothering to read the notes at all to question why [West Fairlee’s rate appeared low],” Hoyt said.
Hoyt expressed concern about the vaccine data’s effects on West Fairlee residents’ choices.
“It’s not simply a matter of civic pride. If folks don’t understand the way those numbers are being allocated and think ‘Oh, nobody else in town is getting vaccinated, so I won’t,’ you go down a bad road,” Hoyt said. “Having those falsely depressed numbers can have implications for other people getting vaccinated.”
As of June 25, Orange County, which includes both Fairlee and West Fairlee, had an overall vaccination rate of 71.9%, according to the Vermont Department of Health’s website.
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