The title of this article in today’s Boston Globe has undoubtedly set off some alarms in Massachusetts. “The State Police received COVID-19 vaccines at work. Hundreds refused to get them. Given the priority that Governor Charlie Baker gave to vaccinating the first respondents and the efforts that were made to achieve this, it would undoubtedly be a disappointment if the State Police were showing hesitation in vaccination in large numbers. This is clearly what the title of the article states, but is it true?
Although the Baker government rejected requests for specific clinics for teachers, arguing that this could divert doses from other underserved populations amid a scant supply, the state created three State Police vaccination sites for soldiers and other first responders during the internship. initial deployment.
On Friday, 2,002 of the 2,847 eligible State Police employees, including civilians, received at least one dose at one of the department’s clinics in Framingham, Plymouth or Chicopee, according to data released in response to a request from the Boston Globe. .
“Police officers in general, especially today with all the scrutiny about them, I think they are very skeptical about almost everything,” said Dennis Galvin, a retired state police major and president of the Massachusetts Association for Professional Police, a group of advocates for current and retired criminal law enforcement and criminal justice. Galvin said he is scheduled to receive his first dose on Tuesday.
Based on the figures provided, it appears at first glance that more than 800 of the nearly 2,800 soldiers have rejected vaccination. This is well over 25% and would probably not send a very good message to the rest of the state’s residents. But there is clearly more here than meets the eye.
First, as the Globe readily admits, these records are only of the three specific pods that the state created exclusively for police vaccination. Some of the policemen may have gone elsewhere to get the vaccines, especially if they live a significant distance from any of the three police stations. Others may have underlying conditions that have prompted their doctors to advise them to wait.
Police union officials representing state police told reporters that they do not monitor or track vaccinations among their members. Police officers were advised to consult their doctors and decide for themselves. In other words, they cannot confirm or deny the total number of unvaccinated police. Therefore, it is entirely possible that the vaccination rate among soldiers is substantially higher.
Unfortunately, this may not be the case in other areas of law enforcement in the Bay State. THE Globe managed to identify numbers in two areas where vaccination hesitation is well above average. At the Bristol County Sheriff’s Office, 66% of the people who work there refused the chance to be pricked. It’s almost as bad in the Corrections Department, where more than half said no, thanks for a chance. This is of particular concern when you consider infection rates in prisons, where outbreaks have increased much faster than in the general population when they occur.
For some reason, I had the impression that all the hesitation of the vaccine had subsided significantly now that vaccines were being launched in large numbers. The catastrophic results of vaccination are almost unknown, and even serious incidents, although non-fatal side effects are being seen in only a small percentage of people who have been vaccinated. Hopefully, we will resolve all of this eventually, but at least for now there are clearly some early respondents in Massachusetts who still have their doubts.