Every day, more Americans are eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine, although nearly half of all front-line health care workers remain unvaccinated, even though they were given priority access. in the first available doses.
According to a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Washington Post, only 52% of all front-line workers say they have received even a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
This leaves 48% of health workers at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19, including doctors, nurses, housewives and home health aides, who are completely unprotected and vulnerable to the virus.
The researchers surveyed more than 1,300 health workers, whose jobs expose them to patients or body fluids, which poses a higher risk than others of contracting COVID-19, which for more than one year in the pandemic has infected about 30 million Americans and killed more than 500,000.
Side effects affect some
Three different vaccines that have been shown to be effective against COVID-19 are currently on the market and are administered to large swathes of the American population. However, it is clear that there have been gaps in the distribution, as well as in the willingness of people to inoculate themselves against the virus.
Among health workers who remain unvaccinated, 12% said they have not yet decided whether to accept a shot in the arm. Another 18% said they do not plan to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, citing concerns about side effects and novelty of vaccines, according to the results of the survey.
Employers also play a role in helping employees access doses. Self-employed workers report lower vaccination rates.
More than eight out of ten vaccinated health workers who are not self-employed say they received a COVID-19 vaccine through their employer. Meanwhile, only 1 in 5 vaccinated health workers living in patients ’homes say they received a COVID-19 vaccine from their local health department.
Vaccine skepticism among black Americans
Racial disparities are also evident in vaccination rates among health care workers.
Black health workers, in particular, have been reluctant to get vaccinated, with 53% of black front-line health workers not confident that the COVID-19 vaccine is safe. This remains constant in the general population: 47% of black adults who are not necessarily health workers feel the same way, according to the survey.
There has been a historical distrust of the medical community by many African Americans, stemming from past abuses that may resonate to this day. They include experimental operations on enslaved black women in the 1840s, as well as the famous Tuskegee Institute experiments of the 1930s that examined the progression of syphilis in black men who were deceived into believing they were being treated for the disease.
Entrepreneurs of the United States they have the legal right to demand the vaccine as a working condition, however, most choose to offer bonuses and other incentives to employees who receive a punch, rather than enforcing compliance.
Experts say the government, community leaders and even private companies should be part of the effort to help people overcome vaccination hesitation so the U.S. can achieve herd immunity.
The Biden administration American Rescue Plan, signed into law last week, will help fund the implementation of the vaccine by states, as well as other responses to COVID-19.
Specifically, the package provides $ 7.5 billion to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to spend on vaccination efforts. Part of the money will go to grants to states to improve the distribution and administration of COVID-19 vaccination.