Some health care workers still say no to a Covid-19 vaccine

Hesitation among health care workers refers to public health officials who expected America’s front-line workers to serve as a role model for others.

“Please get vaccinated,” Anthony Fauci, who is President Biden’s chief adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic, said in a video message to health care providers. “It is important to protect yourself, to protect your family, but just as important, symbolically, as health care providers, to show confidence in the vaccine so that other people in this country can follow suit.”

In a January survey of 1,563 research respondents from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 79% of adults in the U.S. who have not yet been vaccinated say they would be more likely to see a doctor, nurse, or other provider. of medical services when deciding whether to get vaccinated.

Meanwhile, 28% of the 128 health workers in the Kaiser survey said they want to wait and see how the vaccine works for others before receiving it themselves. Although they were not the most resilient group the foundation studied, their excessive influence on whether members of the general public would choose to receive the vaccine refers to public health officials.

Surveys of vaccine skepticism in larger populations have shown that people have become less hesitant as they see others vaccinated.

Some health workers say they gave up the chance for altruistic reasons, believing that others should receive it first. Several health care systems have said they have tried to persuade female employees to get vaccinated because of a lack of data on the impact of vaccines on pregnancy. Other health workers say that while they want to encourage others to get vaccinated, when it comes to their own health, they are still cautious.

“While I was receiving my first shot, I asked the two nurses who administered it to me how they felt when they received the shot. And they were on the waiting side. That scared me a little, but I kept going, “said Charles Smith II, chief financial officer at Vibrant Health in Kansas City, Kan.

At the clinic system where Mr. Smith works, about 30 percent of staff have decided not to receive the vaccine by this point, according to Vibrant Health CEO Patrick Sallee.

Mr Smith said he was uncomfortable with the speed of the process and the lack of long-term data, but news that a more transmissible virus was spreading made him make the leap. “There is an expectation for the healthcare industry to lead other industries to say this is safe and to lead by example,” he said. “I really feel like shaking the dice.”

Mr Smith’s wife, Aniika Jackson-Smith, a dentist, said she was also reluctant to receive a vaccine because she did not feel enough that its long-term effects were known. She said she finally decided to make an appointment to get the first shot at the end of January because she feels responsible for the health care provider not to discourage others from receiving it.

“My mind is not really changed,” she said. “But I think in order to get over this, people will just have to get the vaccine or we’ll be here forever.”

Heidi Arthur, chief campaign officer at the Ad Council, which is conducting a large-scale public education effort on Covid-19 vaccines, said the reception of on-board health workers was not originally part of the plan.

“It was surprising, the level of hesitation,” she said.

Instead of aligning health workers, the Board of Directors found itself bringing together a diverse group of industry leaders, including Dr. Fauci, to educate other health workers about vaccines and address their concerns.

For Susan Izzo, an adult nurse in Connecticut, her initial hesitation was due to the fact that she felt her patients deserved the vaccine before her. Eventually, her patients convinced her to take photos, she said, so she could be healthy to protect them.

“I did not feel that it was my turn, even though he is my health worker. I would have gladly given up my vaccine to my 55-year-old patient, who had just had a lung transplant, ”she said.

Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the United States, said many nurses thought the information about the vaccines that came out during the Trump administration was politicized and wanted to know more. so she can decide for herself if she’s safe. Education and more information, she said, are on the rise among nurses.

Dawn Allen, vice president of patient services at Huron Regional Medical Center in South Dakota, said at first that less than 50 percent of the workforce chose to be vaccinated. After sitting down with staff to answer their questions, especially regarding infertility concerns, she said there are up to 76% of staff who choose to be vaccinated over a two-week period.

However, some nurses say they do not intend to be vaccinated.

Cleon Charles, a traveling nurse who worked in the Covid-19 hotspots during the pandemic, said she would never receive the vaccine and discouraged daughters and parents from receiving it, despite having Covid herself. -19.

She cited general distrust of the pharmaceutical industry, among other concerns, and the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, who received the Covid-19 vaccine in public in early January. Medical officials say the baseball legend died of natural causes, but his death was taken over by anti-vaccination leaders, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called the death “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among the elderly in following the close administration of #COVID #vaccines ”, on Twitter.

“I don’t want to,” said Mrs. Charles. “I’ll risk my vitamins, too.”

Write to Julie Wernau to [email protected]