FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. — Georgia’s COVID rates have plummeted in the last few weeks – and some of the credit belongs to a bedroom community south of Atlanta.
Fayette County has quietly led Georgia in COVID vaccination rates for weeks.
Yet the reasons for it seem rooted in old-school civic engagement, rather than any groundbreaking innovation.
"I think it’s the level of engagement in our community," said Charles Rousseau, a member of the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. "Whether it’s with churches or with civic groups, our residents respond."
Charles Rousseau, a Fayette County commissioner, says it was good old fashioned communication that led Fayette residents to get covid vaccines at the state’s highest rate.
A public health official told 11Alive News that Fayette's numbers aren't the result of any program unavailable to other countries.
"We have a residency that is very well educated, very well involved," Rousseau said. US Census data showed Fayette among Georgia's top four counties in per capita income.
Fayette County leads the state with a 54 percent rate of at least one COVID vaccination. Statewide, the same rate is just 42 percent.
Conversely, north Georgia's Banks County has a vaccination rate of just 24 percent.
"I have a mom that works in the medical field," said Nicolas Dugan, who was in a Peachtree City park Thursday. Dugan says he got the vaccine in order to help keep COVID away from his elderly grandfather.
"I have a lot of nieces and nephews and in my family, we all couldn’t wait for the vaccine to come out so we could take it," added Sandra Roberts.
Fayette is a county that supported President Trump the last two elections. And although the county leads Georgia in vaccinations, even Fayette County’s rate is still behind the rest of America’s.
"I think politics gets put aside in more cases than not when you want to protect the health and welfare of your personal home and family members," Rousseau said.
By contrast to Fayette County's vaccination rate of 54 percent, Fulton and Cobb County are hovering at 50 percent.
Gwinnett, Forsyth and DeKalb are still below 50 percent.
The second highest vaccine rate in Georgia is in Oconee County, just south of Athens.