U.S. health workers are the first to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, but an alarming number across the country refuses to do so.
Earlier this week, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine revealed that about 60 percent of nursing home workers in his state have so far opted not to get vaccinated.
More than half of New York’s EMS workers have shown skepticism, The Post reported last month.
And now, California and Texas are experiencing a high rate of denials from health care workers, according to reports.
An estimated 50 percent of front-line workers in Riverside County, in the state of Gold, opted for the drug, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing public health officials.
According to the newspaper, more than half of the workers at St. Paul’s Community Hospital. Elizabeth of California who were eligible to receive the vaccine did not.
And at Lone Star State, a Houston Memorial Medical Center doctor told NPR earlier this month that half of the facility’s nurses would not receive the vaccine, citing political motives.
The excuse shared by Texas nurses was echoed in a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey that found that 29% of health workers were “hesitant,” the Times reported.
Respondents who leaned against vaccination said, among other reasons, that they were concerned that the policy would influence the development of the vaccine, the newspaper reported.
A nurse at a California hospital who decided not to get the vaccine because she was pregnant said her co-workers who chose the same path she believes they don’t need the vaccine to go through the pandemic.
“I feel like people are thinking,‘ I can still get it until this ends up not getting the vaccine, ’” Lu, a 31-year-old nurse at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, told the Times April.
A high percentage of vaccine denials among health care workers, but also the general population, can be problematic, Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch told reporter.
“Our ability as a society to return to a higher level of functioning depends on having the maximum number of people protected,” Marc Lipsitch said.