When Juan Carlos Guerra got the call on Jan. 12 that his county would receive 300 COVID-19 vaccine doses the following day, he went straight to work.
Guerra, the top elected official in rural Jim Hogg County, Texas, got together with local school superintendent Susana Garza, who was helping him lead vaccination planning. They called hundreds of vaccine-eligible residents to schedule appointments, in stark contrast to big cities, where locals report struggling through maddening online registration processes.
Guerra, who has spent his whole life in Jim Hogg, said he knew almost everyone he called, and they trusted him.
The next day, he and his staff staged a makeshift clinic at a local pavilion normally used for livestock shows – a plan they had hatched days earlier. Garza donated staff to help register patients, while a local home care company volunteered to screen everyone for fever.
With nurses from Texas’ state health department administering shots, the team exhausted their…