One of the vaccine skeptics is Bell County Republican party chair Nancy Boston, 81, who has led the local GOP since 1990. “One day we hear one thing, and the next day we’ll hear something else,” she told me. “So you can’t believe anything, even from the people that you should hold in high regard.” When I asked whether she was concerned about the delta variant, Boston suggested that the variant was somehow created by the vaccine.

“Why do we have a new delta variant?” she asked me. “Is it because they got injected with the first [vaccine]?”

“Do you believe that?” I asked.

“I don’t believe anything,” she replied. “I don’t trust anybody or anything I hear.”

“So how do you decide what to do?”

“I just take care of myself,” she said.