Health workers say no to shots
The desperately awaited vaccination drive against the coronavirus in the United States is running into resistance from an unlikely quarter: surprising numbers of healthcare workers who have seen first-hand the death and misery inflicted by Covid-19 are refusing shots.
It is happening in nursing homes and, to a lesser degree, in hospitals, with employees expressing what experts say are unfounded fears of side-effects from vaccines that were developed at record speed.
More than three weeks into the campaign, some places are seeing as much as 80 per cent of their staff holding back.
‘‘I don’t think anyone wants to be a guinea pig,’’ said Dr Stephen Noble, a 42-year-old cardiothoracic surgeon in Portland, Oregon who is postponing getting vaccinated. ‘‘At the end of the day, as a man of science, I just want to see what the data show. And give me the full data.’’
Alarmed by the phenomenon, some administrators have dangled everything from free breakfasts to a raffle for a car to get employees to roll up their sleeves. Some states have threatened to let other people ahead of healthcare workers in the line for shots.
‘‘It’s far too low. It’s alarmingly low,’’ said Neil Pruitt, CEO of PruittHealth, which runs about 100 long-term care homes in the US South, where fewer than three in 10 workers offered the vaccine so far have accepted it.
Many medical facilities from Florida to Washington state have boasted of near- universal acceptance of the shots, and workers have proudly plastered photos of themselves on social media receiving the vaccine. Elsewhere, though, the drive has stumbled.
While the federal government has released no data on how many people offered the vaccines have taken them, glimpses of resistance have emerged around the country.
In Illinois, a big divide has opened at state-run veterans’ homes between residents and staff. The discrepancy was worst at a home in Manteno, where 90 per cent of residents were vaccinated but only 18 per cent of staff.
In rural Ashland, Alabama, about 90 of some 200 workers at Clay County Hospital have yet to agree to get vaccinated, even with the place so overrun with Covid-19 patients that oxygen is running low and beds have been added to the intensive care unit, separated by plastic sheeting.
The pushback comes amid the most lethal phase in the outbreak yet, with the US death toll at more than 350,000, and it could hinder the government’s effort to vaccinate 70 to 85 per cent of the US population to achieve ‘‘herd immunity’’.
Administrators and public health officials have expressed hope that more health workers will opt to be vaccinated as they see their colleagues take the shots without problems.
Noble said he would wait until April or May to get the shots. He said it was vital for public health authorities to not overstate what they knew about the vaccines. This was particularly important, he said, for Black people like himself, who were distrustful of government medical guidance because of past failures and abuses, such as the infamous Tuskegee experiment.
Medical journals have published extensive data on the vaccines, and the US Food and Drug Administration has made its analysis public. But misinformation about the shots has spread wildly online, including falsehoods that they cause fertility problems.
Stormy Tatom, 30, a hospital ICU nurse in Beaumont, Texas, said she decided against getting vaccinated for now ‘‘because of the unknown long-term side effects. I would say at least half of my co-workers feel the same way’’.
There have been no signs of widespread severe side-effects from the vaccines, and scientists say the drugs have been rigorously tested on tens of thousands of people and vetted by independent experts.
Some states have begun turning up the pressure.
South Carolina’s governor has given healthcare workers until January 15 to get a shot or ‘‘move to the back of the line’’. Georgia’s top health official has allowed some vaccines to be diverted to other frontline workers, including firefighters and police, out of frustration with the slow uptake.
Nursing homes were among the institutions given priority for the shots because the virus has cut a terrible swath through them. Longterm care residents and staff account for about 38 per cent of the nation’s Covid-19 fatalities.
But in West Virginia, only about 55 per cent of nursing home workers agreed to the shots when they were first offered last month, according to Martin Wright, who leads the West Virginia Health Care Association. ‘‘ It’s a race against social media,’’ Wright said of battling falsehoods about the vaccines.
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine said only 40 per cent of the state’s nursing home workers had received shots. North Carolina’s top public health official estimated that more than half were refusing the vaccine there.
SavaSeniorCare has offered cash to the 169 long-term care homes in its 20- state network to pay for gift cards, socially distanced parties or other incentives. But so far, 55 per cent of its workers have refused the vaccine.
Dr Wilbur Chen, a professor at the University of Maryland who specialises in the science of vaccines, said healthcare workers represented a broad range of jobs and backgrounds, and were not necessarily more informed than the general public. He expected the hesitancy to subside as more people were vaccinated and public health officials got their message across.
Some places have already seen turnarounds, such as Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Centre in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. ‘‘ The biggest thing that helped us to gain confidence in our staff was watching other staff members get vaccinated, be OK, walk out of the room [and] not grow a third ear,’’ said Dr Catherine O’Neal, chief medical officer.