Searching for ways to increase Maine’s vaccination rate to help block the spread of COVID-19, public health officials are eyeing an unlikely ally: the state’s children.

Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention, speaks during Wednesday’s state briefing on the COVID-19 pandemic. Screenshot from video

People who may not listen to doctors or other experts might be more inclined to listen to their children, according to Dr. Nirav Shah, director of the Maine Center for Disease Control & Prevention.

Shah said during his weekly briefing Wednesday that when he was young, he successfully prodded his father into wearing a seat belt at a time when strapping one on was not as common as today.

That same sort of informed nagging might have helped push some parents to cease smoking in the wake of public health campaigns to educate students about the dangers posed by cigarettes.

With seat belts and smoking, Shah said, “kids proved to be very effective messengers.”

Maine’s vaccination rate of 68.4% is third highest in the nation, behind Connecticut and Vermont, and 98.6% of the state’s senior citizens have had at least one dose of a vaccine.

But there are pockets within the state, especially in its most-rural counties, where the rates are lower and the disease is spreading more quickly. Convincing more people to get vaccinated is the best way to prevent more cases, Shah and other experts have said repeatedly.

With 867 new cases reported Wednesday in Maine, the second-highest total since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials are eager to find ways to convince more people to roll up their sleeves and get a free, safe shot that will go a long way toward protecting them and others.

Shah said more than 3 billion people worldwide have received vaccinations against the deadly disease, and experience shows it works for almost everyone.

To reach some of the rest, Shah said, it might help to provide information to adolescents and older children, who are already having conversations with parents about the issue.

“We’re still in the how-do-we-think-about-this stage,” Shah said, but conversations are ongoing with officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and his colleagues in other states.

“I’m not going to promise this is going to solve it,” Shah said, “but it could add to some of the information that’s out there.”

Spurring the idea, he said, is “the positive experience that we saw equipping adolescents with information about smoking and the deleterious impacts of smoking, as well as with seat belts” during earlier public health campaigns that made a difference.

“What we saw with those two prior efforts, and probably with others, is that parents may not listen to the folks they see on TV, may not even listen to their own doctor,” Shah said, but “it becomes real for them by virtue of having their child bring it to their attention. That registers on a different set of notes.”

Shah said he has spoken with colleagues about ways to use social media to equip 16-year-olds “with ways to have difficult conversations with their parents around getting vaccinated.”

“Some of those 16-year-olds may themselves be facing resistance when they want to get vaccinated,” Shah said, while others “may already have been vaccinated and are now urging their parents to do so.”