Every day, more Americans are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, but nearly half of all front-line health workers remain unvaccinated, although they are given priority over the first available doses.
Only 52% of all frontline health workers say they have even received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, according to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington Post.
This leaves 48% of health workers at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, including doctors, nurses, housekeepers and helpers at home, completely unprotected and vulnerable to the virus.
Researchers surveyed more than 1,300 health workers whose jobs expose them to patients or body fluids, putting them at higher risk than contracting COVID-19, which infected nearly 30 million Americans in more than one year in the pandemic and more than Killed 500,000.
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Three different vaccines that have been shown to be effective against COVID-19 are currently on the market and are being administered to large sections of the U.S. population. However, there are clear gaps in distribution, as well as the willingness of individuals to be vaccinated against the virus.
Among the health workers who have not yet been vaccinated, 12% said they have not yet decided whether they will accept a shot in the arm. Another 18% said they do not intend to receive a COVID-19 vaccineaccording to the results of the survey, concerns about side effects and the novelty of the vaccines.
Employers also play a role in giving employees access to doses. Self-employed employees report lower vaccination rates.
More than 8 out of ten vaccinated health workers who are not self-employed say they received a COVID-19 vaccine from their employer. Meanwhile, only 1 in 5 vaccinated health workers housed in patients’ homes say they have received a COVID-19 vaccine from their local health department.
Vaccine skepticism among black Americans
Racial differences are also evident in the vaccination rates among health workers.
Black health workers in particular were reluctant to be vaccinated, and 53% of black health workers in the front line said they did not trust the COVID-19 vaccine was safe. It persists in the general population – according to the survey, 47% of black adults do not necessarily feel like health workers.
There has been a historic mistrust in the medical community by many African Americans, stemming from past abuses that can resonate to this day. These include experimental surgeries on addicted black women in the 1840s as well as the infamous Tuskegee Institute experiments in the 1930s that examined the progression of syphilis in black men who were misled into believing that they were receiving treatment for the disease.
Employers across the US has the legal right to prescribe the vaccine as a condition of service, however, most prefer to offer bonuses and other incentives to trapped employees, rather than enforcing compliance.
Experts believe that government, community leaders and even private companies should be part of the effort to help individuals overcome vaccine vaccination so that the US can achieve herd immunity.
The Biden Administration US rescue plan, which was signed into law last week, will help fund the vaccination of countries against other COVID-19 responses.
The package specifically provides $ 7.5 billion to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to spend on vaccination efforts. Some of the money is spent on grants to states to improve the distribution and administration of COVID-19.