Susan, an Alaska-based critical care nurse, has been exposed to Covid-19 several times and watched dozens of people die from the disease. But she did not want to be vaccinated when she found out she would be available soon.
“I’m not an anti-vaxxer, I have every vaccine known to man, my flu vaccine, I always sign up right there, October 1st, I’m jab,” said Susan, who didn’t want to give her last name for fear retaliation. “But for that, why do I have to be a guinea pig?”
The two authorized vaccines, manufactured by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, are safe, according to top experts and clinical trials – for one thing do not contain live viruses and therefore can not give a person Covid – and with tens of thousands of patients, they had about 95% effectiveness. But across the country, health workers with the first access to the vaccine refuse it.
Denial rates – up to 40% of front-line workers in Los Angeles County, 60% of home workers in Ohio – have caused concern and, in some cases, shame. But the final failure could be the rejection of these numbers at a critical time in the US vaccination campaign.
Dr. Whitney Robinson, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, told The Guardian that these early figures from health care workers are not being addressed: “It could mean after all this work, after all these sacrifices, we have he could still see outbreaks for years. , not just 2021, maybe 2022, maybe 2023. ”
Vaccine hesitation is common – 29% of health workers said they were hesitant about the vaccine, according to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation published last month. And it’s not just the US – up to 40% of UK employees could refuse the vaccine, the National Care Association said in mid-December.
The numbers from hospitals and nursing homes are unique in that they provide a more specific picture of who refuses the vaccine and why. Once vaccines are available to the general public, the models will be more difficult to identify because the United States does not have a centralized vaccination tracking system.
“If we don’t understand the patterns of who isn’t vaccinated, it’s going to be hard to predict where the outbreaks might come from and how far they could spread,” Robinson said.
It will also allow underfunded public health agencies to struggle to identify and respond to hesitation in the community.
“We can’t undo someone’s decisions and say, well, that’s their personal decision,” Robinson said. “Because it’s not just their personal decision, it’s an infectious disease. As long as we have coronavirus pockets anywhere in the world, until we have global mass vaccination, it is a threat. “
Some employers and unions see the number for what they are: an alarm that needs an answer.
In New York, the firefighters’ union found last month that 55 percent of 2,000 firefighters surveyed said they would not receive the vaccine.
But the Covid cases go up to FDNY. Twelve members died and more than 600 were on sick leave at the end of December.
So, the president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA), Andrew Ansbro, collected questions from some of the approximately 8,200 firefighters his union represents. A virologist friend helped Ansbro model the union’s response to Covid-19 and answered their questions in a recorded video. The 50-minute video has now been viewed about 2,000 times.
“In fact, we received dozens of phone calls and text messages from members saying they had changed their minds,” said Ansbro, who was vaccinated on Dec. 29. “I think the number of vaccinations will certainly be more than 45%.”
He said people were worried about how new the vaccine was, had read the misinformation online and were worried about the long-term effects. In other workplace surveys, people shared concerns about how it might 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, in general, the hesitation of the vaccine decreases.
But these polls also suggest that action is still needed to address populations more likely to be distrustful because of the country’s history of medical abuse.
Recent polls show that blacks are the most hesitant about the vaccine. In mid-November, 83% of Asian Americans said they would receive the vaccine if it was made available that day. This sentiment was shared by 63% of Hispanics, 61% of whites, but only 42% of blacks, according to a Pew Research report.
Dr. Nikhila Juvvadi, chief clinical officer of Chicago’s Loretto Hospital, told NPR that talks with staff hesitant about the vaccine have shown that mistrust is a problem among African-American and Latin American 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 the progression of the disease. The study lasted from 1932 to 1972.
“I’ve heard of Tuskegee more times than I can count in the last month – and, you know, it’s a valid and valid concern,” Juvvadi said.
Juvvadi, who administered the vaccines at the hospital, said individual conversations that validate these concerns and answer questions have helped people feel more comfortable with the vaccine.
The reluctance of the vaccine to health care workers has also put pressure on health systems that intend to receive doses to as many people as possible as soon as possible.
Georgia’s public health commissioner Kathleen Toomey announced last week that the state will extend access to the vaccine to adults age 65 and older who are the first to respond, as health workers refuse to take it.
Dr. Toomey said that while hundreds of health workers were on waiting lists to receive the vaccine in downtown Atlanta, in rural areas, the vaccine “literally stayed in the freezers” because health workers from there they did not want to take it.
At one of Texas’ most affected hospitals, the Rio GrandeValley Renaissance Medical Hospital, workers contacted local doctors, paramedics and outpatients to distribute their remaining vaccines because of their limited shelf life.
Susan, a nurse from Alaska, said her preference would be for parents to get the vaccine first, because they are more vulnerable.
She has made peace with the vaccine and intends to receive it the next time it is offered. She said she was finally persuaded to get it after talking to other health professionals who did not dismiss her concerns and listened to her questions.
Now, however, there is another obstacle. Susan refused the vaccine twice because of logistics. She is currently on a temporary crisis mission in rural Texas and the trip meant both times when she was given the vaccine, she would be in a different condition when it came time to take the second dose. Susan said, “I feel awful that I said no.”