The headline is actually a bit misleading because some of the older folks featured are aggressively anti-vax, and they counter the pro-vaccine elderly who are motivated in part by memories of the polio epidemic of their childhood.
Here's an excerpt about a pro-vaccine interviewee:
For 87-year-old Marge Loennig, this pandemic has stirred up vivid memories of a close childhood friend who was stricken with polio and was on an iron lung ventilator.
MARGE LOENNIG: Her arms and her lower body were all in the lung - was very frightening for her and very frightening for us.
SIEGLER: But back then, everyone seemed to know someone with the disease. Loennig says people eagerly lined up for the vaccine. Well, she feels like COVID is being downplayed still, so people don't fear it like they did polio.
LOENNIG: If the health departments and all had been open about sharing who has COVID, who doesn't, who's sick, I think some of the anti-vaccine people would not have been so reluctant to get shots.
And here is a quote from an anti-vaccine interviewee in a MAGA hat:
There's almost nothing could convince me.
* * *
And now they're saying, oh, you're evil if you don't take it. And I don't trust them.
* * *
You know, when you got the shot when you were a kid for polio, we took the shot. Well, that was a true block. It actually worked. This thing here that they're giving you, I don't think is.
I've noticed that not all rural places have higher 65 & above vaccination rates than their states as a whole. An illustration of this is my hometown in the Arkansas Ozarks, where the senior citizen set has a lower vaccination rate than that of the same age group statewise. However, I also note that the vaccination rates for those 65 & over are higher for New York state than for New York City, which supports the story's thesis.
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