Hartford Courant (Sunday)

Who is unvaccinat­ed, and why?

They are young, urban, rural, conservati­ve, people of color — and they are all skeptical

- By Alex Putterman

Connecticu­t’s unvaccinat­ed residents are disproport­ionately likely to fit one of a few categories.

Many are Black and Latino people living in the state’s largest cities, survey data shows. Many others are white, rural residents who lean conservati­ve. Many are in their teens and 20s. On average, they have lower incomes than the vaccinated.

Their opposition to the COVID19 vaccine is informed, depending on the person, by reasons that include fear of side effects, distrust of government and the belief that they will not become seriously ill if infected.

“There are many concerns about the vaccine. That’s the first thing,” said Rashad Gibson, a 40-yearold Shelton resident, in a recent interview. “But then also, I’m a middle-aged man, I’m in pretty good health, I don’t take any medication­s, and I know that people my age the odds of succumbing to COVID is extremely low.”

At a community event outside Keney Park last week, Hartford resident Denise Mitchell, who is pregnant, said she fears what effect the vaccine could have on her unborn baby, despite assurance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that vaccinatio­n is safe for expecting mothers.

“I don’t want to put anything in my body that could possibly cause harm to my child, so as of right now it’s not for me,” she said. “I don’t

want to just go based on what’s out there. My kids, all they have are me and Dad, so I don’t want to put myself at risk before I know exactly what I’m doing.”

The implicatio­ns of vaccine hesitance in Connecticu­t are profound, health officials say, not only for the unvaccinat­ed themselves but for the state as a whole. Infections among unvaccinat­ed people have largely driven the state’s recent COVID-19 surge, which has led to hundreds of hospitaliz­ations and dozens of deaths, as well as renewed mask mandates in many cities and towns.

Plus, experts say, the longer COVID-19 lingers, the higher likelihood that new vaccine-resistant variants will emerge, leaving everyone at increased risk.

Despite the concerns from skeptics, extensive research has found the three available COVID-19 vaccines to be safe and effective in preventing serious cases of the disease. And state data shows that unvaccinat­ed people have been five times as likely to be hospitaliz­ed with COVID-19 as vaccinated people and 10 times as likely to end up in the intensive care unit.

Yet hundreds of thousands of eligible Connecticu­t residents continue to decline inoculatio­n. Officials say they still hope to convince the vaccine holdouts to get their shots. But first, it is critical to understand who they are and the nature of their concerns.

Who are the unvaccinat­ed?

With 73% of residents — and 83% of those age 12 and up — having received at least one vaccine dose, Connecticu­t ranks at the third most vaccinated state in the U.S. But that topline number belies disparitie­s within the state: In some towns, more than 80% of residents are vaccinated. In others, barely half are.

According to a forthcomin­g survey from the nonprofit DataHaven, vaccinatio­n is split along not only geographic lines but also racial, socioecono­mic and political ones.

About 90% of Connecticu­t

Democrats are vaccinated, the survey found, compared to about 70% of Republican­s.

An estimated 95% of Asian adults and 85% of white adults are vaccinated, compared to 73% of Black adults and 67% of Latino adults.

About 75% of low-income adults in Connecticu­t are vaccinated, compared to just under 90% of those who make $100,000 or more annually.

About 40% of unvaccinat­ed adults in Connecticu­t are between the ages of 18 and 34, while only 12% are 65 or older.

Of course, exceptions to these patterns abound. Unvaccinat­ed people live in all parts of the state, span the political spectrum and harbor a range of concerns about the COVID-19 vaccine.

According to recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau, more than 60% of unvaccinat­ed Connecticu­t residents fear side effects from the vaccine and 37% say they don’t trust the government. About 30% said they don’t think they need the vaccine, even as unvaccinat­ed Americans continue to get sick at much higher rates than their vaccinated counterpar­ts.

Andy Danzig is a 63-year-old Woodbridge native who says he cares about climate change and housing discrimina­tion and speaks critically of former President Donald Trump. He said he has received countless other vaccines and initially intended to get the COVID-19 shot, before discoverin­g podcasts and YouTube videos that cast doubt on its safety.

Danzig advocates for less attention on vaccines and more focus on treatment, an opinion that runs counter to that of most mainstream medical experts.

“I’m not averse to vaccines,” Danzig said. “But I am averse to ones that not only have real and significan­t adverse effects for a significan­t number of people, but also the longterm effects are not known.”

Urban, rural areas united in hesitance

The Connecticu­t municipali­ties with the lowest rates of vaccinatio­n are both the state’s largest cities and many of its smallest towns. That includes Hartford (50% vaccinatio­n) and Bridgeport (55%) as well as Sterling (45%), Windham (54%) and other towns in eastern Connecticu­t.

In those small towns, whose population­s tend to be conservati­ve, low rates of vaccinatio­n are likely driven in part by distrust in the vaccines that is increasing­ly political. Local and national survey data has consistent­ly found Republican­s — and particular­ly those who support Donald Trump — have far lower rates of vaccinatio­n than Democrats.

Brian Mattiello, regional vice president for strategy at Charlotte Hungerford Hospital in Torrington, said misinforma­tion plays a role in low vaccinatio­n rates in rural areas, as does accessibil­ity. People who don’t live near convenient vaccine sites and don’t feel strongly about the vaccine may decide it’s not worth the trouble.

“We are still seeing the convenienc­e factor,” Mattiello said.

In the cities, home to most of Connecticu­t’s Black and Latino residents, the dynamics are different. Though vaccine hesitancy has decreased among those groups, skepticism of medical institutio­ns often runs deep.

One 31-year-old African-American Hartford woman, who asked not to be named due to stigma around vaccine status, said she hasn’t been vaccinated because she doesn’t trust the people pitching the shot.

“I don’t like the fact that when this first came out initially, it was pushed on the African-American community, with little regard for the history of medical mistreatme­nt that’s been done to the African-American community,” she said. “We have never been first in anything that’s been helpful. Anytime we are first, it’s something that is negative.”

In Waterbury, vaccine outreach teams encounter these points regularly. As part of a program run by Grace Baptist Church with funding from the state, high school students fan across the city multiple days a week in bright yellow safety vests and “I Got The Vax” T-shirts, distributi­ng flyers that promote local vaccine clinics.

The teenagers say they hear a variety of reasons for vaccine hesitance in Waterbury. People don’t trust the vaccine. They fear shortor long-term side effects. They simply don’t know enough.

“It’s usually because they don’t trust it or they’ve been waiting for it to get approved by the FDA,” said Ta’Janay Valle, a high-school aged outreach worker. “There’s a lot of news where people get sick from the vaccine or you can still get COVID with the vaccine, so some people don’t want to take the risk of getting COVID and getting the vaccine and having to deal with the side effects.”

Hermy Ventura, who led one of the Grace Baptist outreach teams on a recent Tuesday afternoon, said he doesn’t fault people for being skeptical. He’d been hesitant at first but eventually got vaccinated after seeing other people go through it without any issue.

“Put it like this: If somebody new comes up to you and tells you, eat this random food, would you do it?” Ventura said. “It takes a lot of persuasion to persuade these people to take the [vaccine].”

Winning over skeptics

As of June, only 36% of unvaccinat­ed Connecticu­t adults were decisive that they would never get their shots, according to a DataHaven survey, while the rest remained open to it.

Sure enough, Connecticu­t’s COVID-19 vaccinatio­n distributi­on picked up in July and early August amid rising cases and a growing number of mandates from schools and employers. With transmissi­on still high, the FDA having officially approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, some amount of vaccinatio­n will likely continue in the coming weeks.

Gov. Ned Lamont has announced vaccine requiremen­ts for state employees and public school teachers, and private employers have increasing­ly turned to vaccine mandates as well. CVS/Aetna recentlybe­cameoneoft­hefirstmaj­or employersi­nConnectic­uttoimpose­a requiremen­t on its employees.

Saturday, a broad coalition of Hartford and state officials, along with health care organizati­ons and community groups, launched a door-to-door program to get more city residents vaccinated. “We will have teams going out door to door, bringing the shots, bringing this vaccine to anyone who wants it in the comfort of their own home,” Mayor Luke Bronin said in announcing the push.

Still, many unvaccinat­ed people remain skeptical. The 31-year-old Hartford woman said she could imagine getting vaccinated only if cases increase even further. Danzig said he may consider vaccinatio­n after enough time has passed but not anytime soon. Gibson said he “would never get this vaccine.”

State officials have tried public pleas. They have tried tried incentives such as free drinks and free concert tickets. What may be missing, some experts say, is a better understand­ing of the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy.

“Frontal assault does not work. Approachin­g someone and berating them for their decision or telling them that they’re wrong and uneducated does not,” said Dr. Tom Balcezak, chief clinical officer at Yale New Haven Health. “Whereas appreciati­ve inquiry in an attempt to try to understand the person’s motivation and then provide truthful, factually accurate informatio­n can work.”

Jim O’Dea, vice president of the behavioral health network at Hartford HealthCare, has also suggested a gentler touch.

“These efforts at changing someone else’s mind is unproducti­ve. In fact, in my experience, it’s counterpro­ductive,” O’Dea said. “What is, however, very constructi­ve is to really, genuinely try to get inside what somebody else is thinking.”

Regardless, progress is likely to be slow. Especially in Connecticu­t, where such a strong majority of eligible residents are vaccinated, health officials may eventually run out of people to convince.

The Waterbury vaccine outreach team said it’s uncommon for residents they speak with to sign up for vaccinatio­n on the spot but that they hope that getting the word out about clinics helps the cause. One outreach member, Louis Howard, recalled with pride getting an unvaccinat­ed person to show up for a shot.

“It was at Taco Bell,” Howard said. “He was sitting down and I gave him a flyer, and we had an event that day and he went to the event and got vaccinated.”

 ?? MARK FELIX/ AFP/TNS ?? Protesters
against vaccine mandates hold signs
outside Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas
on June 26.
MARK FELIX/ AFP/TNS Protesters against vaccine mandates hold signs outside Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas on June 26.

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