Tell me this isn't interesting and worthy of our consideration.
A large percentage of front-line workers in hospitals and nursing homes have refused to take the Covid-19 vaccine, a hurdle for public health officials as the country struggles to roll out inoculations around the country.
About 50 percent of front-line workers in California's Riverside County have refused to take the vaccine, Riverside Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari told The Los Angeles Times on Thursday. California is currently overwhelmed with cases as hospital staff in Southern California face a shortage of intensive-care units and have created makeshift units.
About 2 in 10 Americans are certain they will not change their mind about refusing the vaccine, according to data from the Pew Research Center. And 62 percent said they would be uncomfortable being among the first to receive the vaccine.
Anecdotally, an estimated 60 percent of Ohio nursing home employees have refused the vaccine already, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said during a news briefing Wednesday. It's a stark contrast to the number of nursing home residents who have taken the vaccine when offered, which DeWine guessed to be about 85 percent.
Oh there's more...
They are frontline workers with top-priority access to the COVID-19 vaccine, but they are refusing to take it.
At St. Elizabeth Community Hospital in Tehama County, fewer than half of the 700 hospital workers eligible for the vaccine were willing to take the shot when it was first offered. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, one in five frontline nurses and doctors have declined the shot. Roughly 20% to 40% of L.A. County's frontline workers who were offered the vaccine did the same, according to county public health officials.
So many frontline workers in Riverside County have refused the vaccine — an estimated 50% — that hospital and public officials met to strategize how best to distribute the unused doses, Public Health Director Kim Saruwatari said.
The vaccine doubts swirling among healthcare workers across the country come as a surprise to researchers, who assumed hospital staff would be among those most in tune with the scientific data backing the vaccines.
And first responders too...
More than half of the FDNY firefighters who answered an internal survey said they won't take the coronavirus vaccine once it becomes available to first responders in a couple of weeks, the union representing New York City's firefighters said over the weekend.
Uniformed Firefighters Association President Andrew Ansbro said of the 2,053 firefighters surveyed in recent days, roughly 55 percent said they would not get the vaccine. Ansbro believes a large number of the firefighters resistant to the vaccine share concerns of trying a new vaccine or have limited information of its effectiveness.
Put it all together and you've got a massive proportion of healthcare and frontline workers who, even though they get first dibs, are refusing to get the Covid vaccine.
