The title of this article in today’s Boston Globe undoubtedly set off a few alarm bells in Massachusetts. ‘State Police were offered COVID-19 vaccines at work. Hundreds refused to get it. Given the priority that Governor Charlie Baker placed on the vaccination of first responders and the efforts made to achieve it, it will undoubtedly be a disappointment if the state police hesitate in large numbers against vaccine. It’s clear what the title of the article mentions, but is it true?
Although the Baker administration turned down calls for teacher-specific clinics, arguing that it could divert doses from other needy populations amid a stringent supply, the state has three state police vaccination rooms for troops and other first responders in created the earlier stage of the launch.
As of Friday, 2,002 of 2,847 eligible state police employees, including civilians, had received at least one dose at one of the department clinics in Framingham, Plymouth or Chicopee, according to data released in response to a Boston Globe request. ..
“Police officers in general, especially today with all the investigations into it, think I’m very skeptical about just about anything,” Dennis Galvin, a retired state police major and president of the Massachusetts Association for Professional Law Enforcement, told a group. of current and retired advocates for law enforcement and criminal law. Galvin said he would personally receive his first dose on Tuesday.
Based on the numbers reported, it seems at first glance that more than 800 of the approximately 2,800 troops saw the chance of being vaccinated. That’s more than 25% and it’s probably not going to send a very good message to the rest of the state’s residents. But here is clearly more than meets the eye.
In the first place, as the World admit it is only of the three specific pods that the state has drawn up exclusively for the vaccination of the police. Some officers may have gone somewhere else for their vaccinations, especially if they live a considerable distance from any of the three police pods. Others may have underlying conditions that led their doctors to advise them to wait.
Police union officials representing the state troops told reporters they did not monitor or monitor vaccinations among their members. The police were advised to consult with their doctors and decide for themselves. In other words, they cannot confirm or deny the total number of unannounced police. It is therefore quite possible that the vaccination rate among the troops is significantly higher.
Unfortunately, this may not be the case in other areas of law enforcement in the Bay State. The World could determine the numbers in two areas where it is confirmed that the vaccine hesitation is far above average. At the sheriff’s office in Bristol County, 66% of the people working there were denied the chance to be caught. It’s almost as bad in the Department of Corrections where more than half said no thanks for a shot. This is particularly worrying when you consider the infection rates in prisons, where outbreaks have increased much faster than in the general population.
For some reason, I was under the impression that the whole vaccine hesitation case had decreased significantly now that the shots had expanded in large numbers. Catastrophic consequences of vaccination are almost unheard of, and even serious incidents, although non-fatal side effects are seen only in a small percentage of those vaccinated. Hopefully we will eventually get it right, but at least for now, some first responders in Massachusetts are still in doubt.