Some health workers continue to say no to a Covid-19 vaccine

Hesitation among health care workers refers to public health officials who expected U.S. front-line workers to serve as role models for others.

“Please get vaccinated,” said Anthony Fauci, who acts as President Biden’s chief medical adviser for the Covid-19 pandemic, in a video message addressed to health care providers. “It’s important to protect yourself, to protect your family, but just as important, symbolically, as healthcare providers, to show confidence in the vaccine so that other people in this country can do the same.”

In a survey conducted in January by 1,563 respondents by Kaiser Family Foundation researchers, 79% of American adults who have not yet been vaccinated say they are likely to see a doctor, nurse, or other caregiver. when deciding whether to get a vaccine.

Meanwhile, 28% of 128 health workers in the Kaiser survey said they want to wait to see how the vaccine works for other people before taking it themselves. Although they were not the most resilient group the foundation studied, their excessive influence on whether members of the general public would choose to obtain the vaccine correspond to public health officials.

Surveys of vaccine skepticism in larger populations have shown that people have become less hesitant to see other people vaccinated.

Some health workers say they have stopped firing for altruistic reasons, believing others should get it first. Several health systems said they have struggled to convince employed women to get vaccinated due to a lack of data on the impact of vaccines on pregnancy. Other health workers say that while they want to encourage others to get vaccinated, when it comes to their own health, they are still wary.

“When I was getting the first shot, I asked the two nurses who administered it to me how they felt when they got the shot. And they were next to waiting. That scared me a little bit, but I kept going.” dir Charles Smith II, chief financial officer of Vibrant Health in Kansas City, Kan.

In the clinic system where Mr. Smith works, about 30 percent of staff have decided not to get the vaccine to this point, according to Vibrant Health CEO Patrick Sallee.

Smith said he was uncomfortable with the speed of the process and the lack of long-term data, but news that a more highly transmissible virus variant was spreading made him jump. “There is an expectation for the healthcare industry to lead other industries to say this is safe and to lead by example,” he said. “Seriously, I feel like I’m shaking the dice.”

Mr Smith’s wife, Aniika Jackson-Smith, a dentist, said she was also hesitant to get vaccinated because she did not feel well known about its long-term effects. He said he finally decided to make an appointment to get the first shot in late January, because he feels it is his responsibility as a health care provider not to discourage others from getting it.

“My mind hasn’t really changed,” he said. “But I guess to get over that, people will just have to get the vaccine or we’ll just be here forever.”

Heidi Arthur, head of campaign development for the Ad Council, which has carried out a large-scale educational effort on public service on Covid-19 vaccines, said incorporating health workers was not initially part of the plan.

“It was amazing, the level of hesitation,” he said.

Instead of queuing up for health workers, the Advertising Council found itself gathering a diverse group of industry leaders, including Dr. Fauci, to educate other health workers about vaccines and address their concerns.

For Susan Izzo, an adult nurse practicing in Connecticut, her initial hesitation was because she felt her patients deserved the vaccine before she did. Ultimately, her patients convinced her to receive the shots, she said, so she could be healthy to protect them.

“It didn’t seem like my turn, even though I was a health worker. I would have liked to give up my vaccine to my 55-year-old patient who had just had a lung transplant, ”he said.

Deborah Burger, president of National Nurses United, the largest nursing union in the United States, said many nurses felt that information about vaccines that came out during the Trump administration was politicized and they wanted to learn more so they could decide to themselves if it was safe. Training and more information, she said, increases participation among nurses.

Dawn Allen, vice president of patient services at Huron Regional Medical Center in South Dakota, said at first less than 50 percent of her staff chose to get vaccinated. After sitting down with staff to answer their questions, especially about infertility concerns, he said they are up to 76% of staff who choose to get vaccinated over a two-week period.

However, some nurses say they do not intend to be vaccinated.

Cleon Charles, a traveling nurse who has been working in the hot spots of Covid-19 throughout the pandemic, said she would never get the vaccine and has discouraged her daughters and parents, despite having had Covid-19 herself. .

He cited general distrust from the pharmaceutical industry, among other concerns, and the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron, who publicly received the Covid-19 vaccine in early January. Medical officials say the baseball legend died of natural causes, but his death has been blamed on anti-vaccination leaders, including Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who described the death as “part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly after the administration of #COVID #vaccines “, on Twitter.

“I don’t want it,” said Mrs. Charles. “I’ll get my chances and my vitamins.”

Write to Julie Wernau to [email protected]