VACCINATION Faith in religion, herd immunity
Core part of Amish belief is accepting God’s will in illness
When health care leaders in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country began laying out a strategy to distribute COVID-19 vaccines, they knew it would be a tough sell with the Amish, who tend to be wary of preventive shots and government intervention.
Early on, they posted fliers at farm supply stores and at auctions where the Amish sell handmade furniture and quilts. They sought advice from members of the deeply religious and conservative sect, who told them not to be pushy. And they asked three newspapers widely read by the Amish to publish ads promoting the vaccine. Two refused.
By May, two rural vaccination clinics had opened at a fire station and a social services center, both familiar places to the Amish in Lancaster County. During the first six weeks, 400 people showed up. Only 12 were Amish.
The vaccination drive is lagging far behind in many Amish communities following outbreaks that swept through their churches and homes the past year. In Ohio’s Holmes County, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Amish, just 14 percent of the county’s overall population is fully vaccinated.
Their religious beliefs don’t forbid them to get vaccines. But the Amish are generally less likely to be vaccinated for preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough.
Though vaccine acceptance varies by church district, the Amish often rely on family tradition and advice from church leaders, and a core part of their Christian faith is accepting God’s will in illness or death.
Many think they don’t need the COVID-19 vaccine now because they’ve gotten sick or believe their communities reached herd immunity, according to health care providers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, home to twothirds of the estimated 345,000 Amish in the U.S.
“That’s the No. 1 reason we hear,” said Alice Yoder, executive director of community health at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, a network of hospitals.
Because many Amish work and shop alongside their neighbors and hire them as drivers, they hear the skepticism, the worries about side effects and misinformation from the “English,” or non-amish though they shun modern conveniences.
“They’re not getting that from the media. They’re not watching TV or reading it on the internet. They’re getting it from their English
neighbors,” said Donald Kraybill, an expert on the Amish. “They are reflecting rural America and the same attitudes.”
One anti-vaccine group took out a full-page newspaper ad showing a smashed buggy with the words “Vaccines can have unintended consequences.”
Public health officials put up billboards where the Amish travel by horse and buggy, sent letters to bishops and offered to take vaccines into homes and workplaces, with little success.
“It’s not due to lack of effort,” said Michael Derr, health commissioner in Holmes County, Ohio. “But this thing is so politically charged.“
Some health clinics that serve the Amish are hesitant to push the issue for fear of driving them away from getting blood pressure checks and routine exams.
Staff members at the Parochial Medical Center, which serves the Amish and Mennonites in Pennsylvania’s Lancaster County, encourage patients to get the vaccine, but many have little fear of the virus, said Allen Hoover, the clinic’s administrator.
“Most listen and are respectful, but you can tell before you’re finished that they’ve already made up their mind,” he said.