After 110,000 deaths devastated the country’s nursing homes and pushed them to the front of the vaccination line, they now face a worse problem: suspicious residents and workers fighting to get the shots.
The first comes with persistent fears that places in the epidemic could be severely affected – nearly 40% of the country’s death toll – could be at risk again with vaccines that are injected into growth for months instead of years. Some who live and work in homes question whether the elderly have been tested enough, if enough side effects are known and if the scenes can do more harm than good.
“You get it first, let me know how you feel,” said Denise Schwartz, whose 84-year-old mother lives in an auxiliary living facility in East Northport, New York, and plans to discard the vaccine. “Obviously it’s scary for her to get COVID, but is it completely safe for the elderly and fragile health?”
When the United States began shipping freeze-filled bottles of the newly approved vaccine from Pfizer and its German partner Bioendech, public health officials said yes.
Everyone from members of the military to former presidents have announced their intentions to get the shots out, echoing the harsh review of drugs, conclusive data and the exceptions of others who claim to be the product of independent experts.
In a study of approximately 44,000 people, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that the vaccine was safe and effective in more than 90% of people of all ages, with adults and those with health problems at higher risk for COVID-19. .
But the foundation of suspicion in nursing homes persists, sometimes triggered by divisive politics, corporate distrust and misinformation. So far, only workers are being heard loudly.
“Everyone is worried about this, it was rushed by people who did not listen to science,” said Denise Alegreti, director of the 1999 largest SEIU, the nation’s largest health workers’ union.
Internal surveys by groups, including the American Nurses’ Foundation, show that many workers in long-term care facilities are so concerned about the vaccine that they deny it.
“I will not be a test dummy,” he responded to a survey by the National Association of Health Assistants. “It’s not safe, I do not believe it,” said another. Some respondents said, “No!” Replied.
Christina Siker, a 33-year-old senior nurse assistant at a nursing home in Tampa, Florida, is constantly exhausted and terrified after nine months, killing two dozen residents and making 16-hour shifts commonplace. But she has no plans to get vaccinated, at least for now.
“Will there be side effects? Does it really work? She asked. “If we all get sick of taking this, who is going to take care of our patients?”
Resistance to the vaccine in nursing homes is not entirely unexpected – 3 out of 10 employees, and 2 out of 10 residents were not vaccinated against the flu last year, for example – but this is no less worrying.
Experts believe that no matter how easily COVID-19 is spread, especially in communal settings, 70% of people need to be vaccinated to be successful.
“It is always a challenge for nursing home staff to be vaccinated,” said Litgen Dan, chief strategist at the panel’s Immunization Action Coalition. “We’re cutting it close.”
Cultural issues may also be in play. The majority of people of color are assistants and other leading workers in nursing homes, and some minorities express distrust of medicine, with professionals associated with past abuses.
A poll released last week by the Associated Press-NRC Public Affairs Research Center found that black and Hispanic people in the United States are far less likely than white people to agree to be vaccinated. Compared to 24% of blacks and 34% of Hispanics, 53% of whites said they would get shots for themselves.
According to the AP-NORC poll, women are less likely than men to be vaccinated. 9 of the 10 front row nursing home workers are estimated to be women. Overall, a quarter of American adults said they refused to be vaccinated, while another quarter said they were not sure.
“It simply came to our notice then. They do not believe in science, ”said Lori Porter, chair of the Health Aid Group, who accused the Trump administration of turning faith in science into a political issue and undermining its own experts. “There’s a lot of misinformation about this epidemic this year. They don’t think anyone can be trusted.”
The federal government is set to launch such approaches this week with a blatantly $ 250 million advertising campaign that will eventually target health workers and vulnerable groups. The pitch tells how vaccines can help defeat COVID-19 in the same way that they defeat measles, measles and polio.
“Vaccines are one of the greatest advances in medical science,” said Anthony Fucci, America’s leading epidemiologist.
The American Healthcare Association, which represents nursing homes, has called on every resident and employee to receive two doses of the vaccine by March 1, although no federal or state mandates are expected.
“It is our hope that we will make the vaccine widely accepted,” said Mark Parkinson, President of the AHCA. “But if we do not, I assure you that our company and individual operators will examine whether the vaccine is mandatory or not. We hope we do not have to go there.”
John Sauer, head of the Wisconsin branch of Leading Agency, which represents non-profit long-term care facilities, said most residents and workers should be sure of all the hardships they have already experienced. “They know it’s really a life and death situation.”
No reliable measurements of the opinion of nursing home residents regarding the corona virus vaccine have been released. In general, the AP-NORC poll found that older people are more likely to accept the vaccine than younger people.
But fears persist among many older people, who may already have a long list of medications that may cause bad interactions, or undiagnosed problems specific to their age.
Like many vaccines, pharmaceutical companies claim that recipients may experience fever, fatigue, or sore arms through injection. Authorities are investigating a number of allergic reactions reported in the UK by health workers with a history of severe allergies.
Penelope Ann Shaw, a 77-year-old nursing home resident who lives in Braintree, Massachusetts, said she plans to refuse the vaccine because, like the annual flu scenario, her concerns about drug allergies and the new corona virus are not well known.
“For me, I think it’s a little premature,” said Guilin-Barr, who has Syndrome, an immunodeficiency disorder, and is a separate long-term care resident who works at the Federal Corona Virus Commission for Safety and Quality in Nursing Homes. . “You didn’t do it with me.”
A year later, many amenities go out into the world, paralyzing some residents in isolation and leading to medical collapse and death for others, some without any hope.
Among them is 85-year-old Harriet Krakowski, a resident of a Hebrew home in Riverdale, New York, who had friends killed by the virus and is still waiting for visitation restrictions so he can meet two grandchildren born this year.
“For the first time in six or seven months, there is a little light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.