Susan, a critical care nurse in Alaska, has been exposed to Covid-19 several times and has seen many people die from the disease. But she did not want to get the vaccine when she learned that it would be available soon.
“I’m not an anti-waxxer, I have every vaccine that man knows, my flu shot, I always sign up there, October 1st, light me up,” said Susan, who for fear did not want to call her surname not. of retaliation. “But why should I be a guinea pig for this one?”
The two authorized vaccines, manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, are safe, according to leading experts and clinical trials – for one thing it contains no live virus and therefore can not give a person Covid – and with tens of thousands of patients they have had about 95% efficacy. But across the country, health workers with the first access to the vaccine turn it down.
The bounce rates – up to 40% of frontline workers in the state of Los Angeles, 60% of the care workers in Ohio – have caused concern and in some cases embarrassment. But the ultimate failure may be to dismiss these numbers at a critical moment in the U.S. vaccination campaign.
Dr Whitney Robinson, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, told the Guardian that if these early figures from health workers are not addressed: ‘It could mean we could see outbreaks for years after all this sacrifice. , not just 2021, maybe 2022, maybe 2023. ”
There is a reluctance to get vaccinated – 29% of health workers say they are not reluctant to get vaccinated, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation published last month. And it’s not exclusive to the US. Up to 40% of care workers in the UK may refuse to have the vaccine, the National Care Association said in mid-December.
The numbers coming from hospitals and care homes are unique in that they give a more specific picture of who is refusing the vaccine and why. Once vaccinations are available to the general public, patterns will be more difficult to identify because the US does not have a central system for detecting vaccinations.
“If we do not understand the patterns of who is not vaccinated, it will be difficult to predict where outbreaks may occur and how far they may spread,” Robinson said.
It will also scramble underfunded public health agencies to identify and respond to community hesitation.
“We can not just copy someone’s decisions and say, ‘This is their personal decision,'” Robinson said. ‘Because it’s not just their personal decision, it’s a contagious disease. As long as we have coronavirus pockets all over the world, it is a threat until we have global mass vaccination. ‘
Some employers and unions see the numbers for what they are: an alarm that needs a response.
In New York City, the fire department found last month that 55% of the 2,000 firefighters surveyed said they would not get the vaccine.
But Covid cases climb on the FDNY. Twelve members died and more than 600 were on medical leave at the end of December.
The president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA), Andrew Ansbro, therefore collected questions from some of the approximately 8,200 firefighters representing his union. A virologist friend helped Ansbro shape the union’s response to Covid-19 and recorded their questions in a video. The 50-minute video has now been viewed approximately 2,000 times.
“I actually got a few dozen calls and messages from members saying it had changed its mind,” said Ansbro, who was vaccinated on Dec. 29. “I think the vaccination numbers are definitely going to be higher than 45%.”
He said people were worried about how new the vaccine was, read wrong information online and were worried about the long-term consequences. In other surveys in the workplace, people have expressed concern about how it could affect fertility or pregnant women. Some health workers infected with Covid do not think it is necessary while they still have antibodies.
Each of these questions can be answered. And national surveys have shown that vaccine hesitation is declining in general.
But these surveys also suggest that action still needs to be taken to address populations that are more likely to be distrustful due to the country’s history of medical abuse.
Recent surveys show that black people are the most vaccinated. In mid-November, 83% of Asian Americans said they would get the vaccine if it was made available to them that day. Sentiment was shared by 63% of Hispanics, 61% of whites, but only 42% of blacks, according to a report by Pew Research.
Dr Nikhila Juvvadi, chief clinical officer at Loretto Hospital in Chicago, told NPR that talks with staff who are not considered for vaccines have given rise to mistrust among African-American and Latino workers.
She said people specifically mentioned the Tuskegee study, when federal health officials allowed hundreds of black men with sexually transmitted diseases not to be treated to study disease progression. The study lasted from 1932 to 1972.
“I’ve heard Tuskegee more times in the last month than I can count – and you know, it’s a valid case,” Juvvadi said.
Juvvadi, who administered vaccines at the hospital, said one-on-one conversations confirming these concerns and answering questions helped people become more comfortable with the vaccine.
Vaccination of vaccines by health workers has also put pressure on the health systems aimed at getting doses to as many people as possible as quickly as possible.
Georgia’s public health commissioner Kathleen Toomey announced last week that the state would expand access to vaccines for adults 65 and older and first responders because health workers do not want to take them.
Dr Toomey said that while hundreds of health workers were on waiting lists to get the vaccine in the city’s downtown, Atlanta, in the rural areas, the vaccine ‘literally sat in freezers’ because health workers there did not want to take it.
In one of the Texas hospitals hardest hit by the virus, the Renaissance Medical Hospital in the Rio Grande Valley, workers contacted local EMTs, paramedics and medical workers from outside the hospital to distribute their remaining vaccines due to their limited shelf life.
Susan, the nurse in Alaska, said her parents prefer to get the vaccine first because they are more vulnerable.
She made peace with the vaccine and plans to get it next time. She said she was finally convinced to get it after talking to other health professionals who did not bother her and listening to her questions.
Now, however, there is another obstacle. Susan rejected the vaccine twice due to logistics. She is currently on a temporary crisis assignment in rural Texas, and the trip meant that both times the vaccine was offered, that she would be in a different condition if it was time to take the second dose. Susan said, “I feel terrible that I said no.”