The desperately awaited coronavirus vaccination campaign in the United States is encountering resistance from an unlikely quarter: a surprising number of health professionals who have seen firsthand the death and misery inflicted by COVID-19 are refusing vaccines.
It is happening in nursing homes and, to a lesser extent, in hospitals, with employees expressing what experts say are unfounded fears of the side effects of vaccines that were developed at record speed. After more than three weeks of campaigning, some places are seeing up to 80% of the staff retaining them.
“I don’t think anyone wants to be a guinea pig,” said Dr. Stephen Noble, a 42-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon from Portland, Oregon, who is postponing the vaccination. “Ultimately, as a man of science, I just want to see what the data shows. And give me the complete data. “
Alarmed by the phenomenon, some managers offered everything from free breakfasts at the Waffle House to a car draw to make employees roll up their sleeves. Some states have threatened to let other people get ahead of health workers in line for vaccines.
“It is very low. It’s frighteningly low, ”said Neil Pruitt, CEO of PruittHealth, which runs about 100 long-term care homes in the South, where less than 3 in 10 workers who have received the vaccine so far have accepted it.
Many medical facilities, from Florida to Washington state, prided themselves on the almost universal acceptance of vaccines, and employees proudly pasted photos of themselves on social media receiving the vaccine. Elsewhere, however, the path stumbled.
Although the federal government did not release data on how many people who received the vaccines did, signs of resistance have emerged across the country.
In Illinois, a large division has opened up in state veteran residences between residents and employees. The discrepancy was worse at the veterans’ home in Manteno, where 90% of residents were vaccinated, but only 18% of team members.
In rural Ashland, Alabama, about 90 of the nearly 200 workers at Clay County Hospital have not yet agreed to be vaccinated, even though the location is so crowded with COVID-19 patients that oxygen is running low and beds have been added to the unit. intensive care, divided by plastic sheets.
The resistance comes amid the most lethal phase of the outbreak so far, with the death toll at over 350,000, and could hinder government efforts to vaccinate somewhere between 70% and 85% of the US population to obtain “immunity” herd “.
Public health officials and officials have expressed the hope that more health professionals will opt for vaccination when they see their colleagues get the vaccines without problems.
Oregon’s Noble doctor said he will wait until April or May to receive the injections. He said it is vital for public health officials not to exaggerate what they know about vaccines. This is particularly important, he said, for blacks like him, who do not trust government medical advice because of past failures and abuses, such as the infamous Tuskegee experiment.
Medical journals published extensive data on vaccines, and the Food and Drug Administration made their analysis public. But misinformation about injections has spread wildly online, including falsehoods that cause fertility problems.
Stormy Tatom, 30, an ICU nurse at a hospital in Beaumont, Texas, said she decided not to be vaccinated for the time being “because of unknown long-term side effects”.
“I would say that at least half of my co-workers feel the same way,” said Tatom.
There have been no signs of widespread serious side effects with vaccines, and scientists say the drugs have been rigorously tested on tens of thousands and examined by independent experts.
States began to increase the pressure. The governor of South Carolina gave health workers until January 15 to receive an injection or “go to the end of the line”. Georgia’s top health official allowed some vaccines to be diverted to other frontline workers, including firefighters and police, frustrated by the slow application.
“There is a vaccine available, but it is literally stuck in freezers,” said Commissioner of Public Health, Dr. Kathleen Toomey. “This is unacceptable. We have lives to save. “
Nursing homes were among the institutions that were given priority for vaccines because the virus hit them. Long-term care residents and employees are responsible for about 38% of COVID-19 deaths in the United States.
In West Virginia, only about 55% of nursing home workers agreed to the injections when they were first offered last month, according to Martin Wright, who heads the West Virginia Health Care Association.
“It’s a race against social media,” said Wright of combating falsehoods about vaccines.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said only 40% of the state’s nursing home workers were vaccinated. North Carolina’s top public health official estimated that more than half were refusing the vaccine there.
SavaSeniorCare offered money to 169 long-term households in its network of 20 states to pay for gift cards, socially distant parties or other incentives. But so far, data from about a third of their households show that 55% of workers have refused the vaccine.
CVS and Walgreens, which were hired by most nursing homes in the United States to administer the COVID-19 vaccines, have not released specifications on the acceptance rate. CVS said that residents agreed to be immunized at an “encouragingly high” rate, but that “initial acceptance among employees is low”, in part due to efforts to stagger when employees receive vaccines.
Some facilities have vaccinated workers in stages so that staff are not excluded at once if they experience minor side effects, which can include fever and pain.
The hesitation is not surprising, given the confused message from political leaders and online misinformation, said Dr. Wilbur Chen, a professor at the University of Maryland who specializes in vaccine science.
He noted that health professionals represent a wide range of jobs and experiences and said that they are not necessarily more informed than the general public.
“They also don’t know what to believe,” said Chen. But he said he hopes the hesitation will subside as more people get vaccinated and public health officials get their message across.
Some places have seen changes, such as the Nossa Senhora do Lago Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
“The biggest thing that helped us gain confidence in our team was watching other team members get vaccinated, get well, leave the room, you know, not cultivating a third ear, and it really is like an avalanche,” said Dr. Catherine O’Neal, chief physician. “The first hundreds we created, another 300 wanted the vaccine.”
___
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Janet McConnaughey in New Orleans; Candice Choi in New York; Kelli Kennedy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Jay Reeves in Birmingham, Alabama; Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; John Seewer in Toledo, Ohio; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and Bryan Anderson in Raleigh, North Carolina.