Friday, March 12, 2021

Even medical staff worry about taking vaccine

    Ashley Thornton can get the COVID vaccine any time she wants it. But she doesn’t want it, at least not yet.
     “I’m apprehensive to get the vaccine,” she said. Why? Bad experience with vaccines, for starters.
     “Out of everyone, I’m the person who gets the flu from the flu shot,” said Thornton, staffing coordinator for the emergency department at Roseland Community Hospital, where more than half of the staff — 57% — have declined the vaccine that many nationwide are clamoring for.
     This is not uncommon, but repeated at hospitals and medical facilities; only 56% of staff at Mount Sinai have gotten a vaccine shot. A Centers for Disease Control study found 77.8% of residents in nursing homes took the vaccine, while the proportion of vaccinated staff is less than half that — 37.5%.
     Thornton is troubled by how quickly the vaccines were developed.
     “I just think it hasn’t been out long enough for the proper tests and protocols to be done before I inject that into my body,” she said.
     And there is another reason.
     “Honestly, people of color are more apprehensive because of the Tuskegee experiment,” she said.

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7 comments:

  1. It's not surprising that people are vaccine hesitant or resistant. Especially people who have been disregarded historically.

    So many other groups have members who feel similarly. Just don't trust the government or the pharmaceutical industry.

    Thank you Neil for not shaming these folks. Right now there are more people that want the jab than there is supply. That should end soon. Convincing people to take the jab after hundreds of millions already have may be easier. But there will certainly be tens of millions who will refuse.

    I hope people won't be forced to get vaccinated. Recent history shows they will be shamed, coerced and denigrated.

    I'm gonna get mine. I'll be "protected" from reinfection at that point. The government should assure that Everyone who wants the jab should get it ASAP. IMHO People who don't want it should not be forced to take it.

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  2. I'm glad you noticed. I didn't utter an editorial word. I felt fortunate they were sharing their thoughts with me, and trust readers enough that they can sift through their validity themselves without a lot of pointing by me

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  3. The Tuskeegee Experiment is more than credible enough for black people to be hesitant. As silly as it sounds, maybe an idea worth considering would be to pair blacks who are hesitant with whites and receive the vaccine from the same vial. Voluntary of course.

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  4. It is reasonable for Black people to be hesitant because of the Tuskegee Experiment, but if that hesitancy translates into substantial refusal to be vaccinated Blacks as well as non-Blacks will suffer from the long term enabling of the virus to persist in the population at large.

    Tom

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    1. it is likely people will need to be vaccinated again periodically with boosters or for variants in order to keep this virus at bay . herd immunity will only succeed in ending the pandemic aspect of this particular malady and allow the healthcare system to function normally here and in other regions of the world. it will be a monumental task to tame this scourge . efforts to completely immunize the entire world have only been successful once . with smallpox. even polio still carves a nitch in places. as people age into the need to be vaccinated if we let our guard down there likely will be resurgences. our best hope is to manage its damage and find effective treatment. right now distribution of as many doses as possible is most important. hopefully vaccination is as effective as predicted. if vaccinated people start turning up presenting symptoms some severe our hopefulness could fade to disappointment and continued misery. fingers crossed

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  5. I think this is worth reading. https://prospect.org/first100/most-important-decision-biden-presidency-vaccines-patents/ From the article by David Dayen. Written on March 1st about 94 million Americans have immunity through past infection; that’s over one-quarter of the population. You need to add that to the immunity numbers to see the whole picture. There’s some overlap—I personally think those previously infected should wait to get the vaccine—but not that much.

    The point is that to get back to normal, you can combine that one-quarter with the roughly 50 percent of the county who we know is going to get the vaccine when offered. Together that’s in the ballpark of 75 percent, the low end of immunity needed for normality. All “I am not a demographer” caveats apply, but I don’t think you need to convince that many people to take the vaccine, and an actual campaign aimed at convincing, combined with a healthier country with fewer infections and no lasting side effects, should do the trick. It would be way better to get more people vaccinated. Hopefully projections will be correct and that by July we will be back to some sort of normalcy. That doesn't mean we should stop obeying protocols with the different variants out there.

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    1. half of Italy is being shut down again right now

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