Thousands of health and frontline professionals across the United States are refusing to receive COVID-19 vaccines while vaccine distribution in America continues to boom.
Up to half of health workers in California County and a Texas hospital say they will not receive the injection, 60% of Ohio health care workers are refusing the vaccine and 40% of frontline workers in Los Angeles will not get both, the polls show.
Respondents in a series of surveys cited fears of dangerous side effects, posters on health worker forums say they feel they are being used as guinea pigs and experts blame the misinformation.
Although life-threatening side effects are rare, examples of them emerged in the early days of the vaccine’s launch with two health professionals in Alaska – one of whom had no history of allergies – suffering from anaphylactic shock minutes after receiving the first dose of Pfizer vaccine.
The problem is not unique to the United States. American and Dutch health workers have complained that they are being used as guinea pigs.
But it is a terrible problem in the United States, where 3,000 people routinely die in periods of just 24 hours, and the vaccine is being launched at a snail’s pace with only about 14 percent of the 20 million people who Operation Warp Speed Promised to vaccinate by the end of 2020 receiving his first doses before New Year’s Day.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Thursday that 60% of nursing home workers are refusing to vaccinate. Up to 40% of healthcare professionals in Los Angeles and 50% in Riverside County are refusing injections, according to the Los Angeles Times
In Ohio, 60 percent of nursing home workers are refusing coronavirus vaccines, as are half of healthcare workers in Riverside County, California, despite facing elevated COVID-19 risks and receiving vaccines first
Millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines are available in much of the United States, but are not used
Health professionals received the first slot in the queue to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in all states, following the CDC’s recommendations to prioritize their inoculation.
The granting of early access was intended to protect nurses, doctors and hospital staff exposed repeatedly to COVID-19 patients.
Public health experts hoped that vaccinating health workers first would not only protect them from infection, but would also reduce the risk of spreading the virus and prevent hospitals from running out of employees.
But the assumption that health professionals would want the injections did not work.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said on Thursday that about 60 percent of nurses are refusing the injection.
“We are not going to do them, but we would like to have a greater compliment,” he said.
‘And our message today is: the train may take a while to return. We will make it available to everyone eventually, but this is the opportunity for you, and you should really think about getting it. ‘
Health professionals accessed Twitter to express their concerns about having little data on vaccine safety
A New Jersey health worker said she was sure that she and her colleagues were being vaccinated first to serve as ‘guinea pigs’ for COVID-19 injections before being administered to the general public.
In Los Angeles County, between 20 and 40 percent of frontline workers are refusing to shoot COVID-19, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In neighboring Riverside County, refusal is even more common, with half of the frontline employees refusing coronavirus vaccines.
“I’m choosing the risk – the risk of having COVID, or the risk of the vaccine unknown,” April Lu, a 31-year-old California nurse, told the LA Times.
‘I think I am choosing the COVID risk. I can control and prevent this a little bit by wearing masks, although not 100 percent for sure. ‘
The nurses’ refusal should not have come as a complete surprise to health officials – especially in California.
A Kaiser Family Health Foundation survey published on December 15 – just when the United States was starting to distribute vaccines – found that 29 percent of people working in healthcare facilities did not want the injection.
A national COVID-19 vaccine mandate would be unprecedented and unlikely, even under Biden’s administration.
Individual institutions, however, may require firing.
For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) requires that all staff with clinical practice take flu vaccines in order to work.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said he was “certain” that some institutions and companies will require vaccination and that “everything will be on the table” in terms of how to vaccinate more people and end the pandemic, according to News Week.