Harris County’s $100 incentive leads to spike in vaccine numbers
Harris County is opening up new COVID-19 vaccination sites as the delta variant, incentive programs and federal regulators’ full approval of the Pfizer shot push up demand across the state.
The new sites, announced Tuesday by County Judge Lina Hidalgo, come amid a nearly 530 percent increase in daily vaccination rates that Hidalgo credited in part to the county’s recent decision to dole out $100 gift cards to those who receive their first dose.
Hidalgo’s announcement came one day after the Food and Drug Administration gave full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for adults and teenagers.
“FDA approval is the culmination of many, many months of demonstrating the safety and efficacy of the vaccine,” said Dr. James Versalovic, pathologist-inchief at Texas Children’s Hospital. “It’s the final capstone to the process.”
The new FDA designation was the last thing standing between Maria Navarro, 53, and the vaccine. She was among the steady stream of cars Wednesday that snaked through the parking lot of Sheldon Independent School District, which was turned into a vaccine hub at Hidalgo’s direction.
“The main thing is that it was approved,” Navarro said of the FDA decision. “I’m going to have to get it, so I figured, ‘Why not?’ ”
Arcadia Chirinos hadn’t heard about the news from the FDA by the time she walked into a pop-up vaccine clinic at a Food Town in north Houston on Tuesday. The 42-year-old mother said she de
cided to get vaccinated to protect her children, but upon learning about the FDA decision she said it added to her comfort level after months of misinformation about vaccines.
“A lot of people haven’t gotten one, and it’s because they’re afraid,” she said.
For some, the FDA approval only strengthened their vaccine skepticism.
“This is disgusting and sick,” said Jennifer Bridges. “How could the FDA actually approve this? I cannot even fathom that.”
Bridges was a nurse at Houston Methodist Hospital until this summer, when she and more than 150 other employees resigned or were fired over their refusal to comply with a mandate that all hospital employees be vaccinated by late June.
Bridges and 116 other Methodist employees unsuccessfully sued the hospital, alleging it was improper for them to be required to take a vaccine that was still under emergency use authorization, a rare designation that allowed the vaccines to be fasttracked for approval.
Bridges now works for a private health care provider, and said the FDA’s rubber stamp does nothing to change her belief that vaccines are unsafe.
“I will die before I get vaccinated,” she said.
Kira Ganga Kieffer, a Boston University researcher who is writing a book about vaccine skepticism, health care and religious groups, said she was happy the FDA cleared the Pfizer vaccine but is not confident it will do much to convince those who are opposed to vaccines because they distrust the government.
“For those who are afraid of government corruption, I don’t believe this will move the needle,” she said. “So many hesitant people are afraid of the government’s role in science and medicine, whether it’s the FDA or the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). There is an entrenched fear that those authority structures are not on the side of ‘the people.’ ”
Like Bridges, Stacy Williams is a nurse. And, like Bridges, she said her time as a nurse has made her skeptical of the broader health care system.
“Most people who work in health care are aware” of systemic issues that can place profit over patient needs, which can lead to reservations about vaccine rollout, she said.
For her, the FDA approval carries considerable weight.
“It finally got approved, and I just felt like all the T’s had been crossed and all the I’s have been dotted, so I’m here,” she said.