'Don't You Work With Old People?': Many Elder- Care Workers Still Refuse Covid-19 Vaccine [View all]

“Don’t You Work With Old People?”: Many Elder-Care Workers Still Refuse to Get COVID-19 Vaccine. By Jenny Deam, Ryan Gabrielson, Bianca Fortis, ProPublica, 7/23/21. - Ed. - Amid a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” more than 40% of the nation’s nursing home and long-term health care workers have yet to receive vaccinations.

They are two sisters in two states. Both are dedicated health care professionals who watched in horror as COVID-19 swept through the nation’s nursing homes, killing a staggering number of residents and staff alike. One sister is now vaccinated. The other is not. “Dude. Get vaccinated!” Heidi Lucas texted her sister Ashley back in May from her home in Jefferson City, Missouri. "Nope lol,” Ashley Lucas texted back from Orbisonia, Pennsylvania. “Don’t you work with old people?” “Yeah” “What if you killed one of them? Get vaccinated,” Heidi wrote.

Neither sister is budging as the Delta variant brings a new spike in coronavirus numbers across the nation. Their divide mirrors America’s larger one, where the vaccine to combat COVID-19 is eagerly embraced by some, yet eyed with suspicion and rejected by others. It is the refusal group, including a significant percentage who work in the nation’s nursing homes, that has confounded and alarmed health care officials who are at a loss as to how to sway them. Nursing homes faced a shocking mortality rate during the pandemic. In the U.S., COVID-19 killed more than 133,000 residents and nearly 2,000 staff members between May 31, 2020 and this July 4, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports.

The true toll is thought to be even higher as data gathering lagged in the early months of the crisis, health experts say. Working in a nursing home became one of the “most dangerous jobs” in America in 2020, according to an analysis of work-related deaths by Scientific American. Yet 7 months after the first vaccines became available to medical professionals, only 59% of staff at the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are fully or partially vaccinated — with 8 states reporting an average rate of less than half, according to CMS data updated last week. 23 individual facilities had vaccination rates of under 1%, the data showed. Staff vaccinations have lagged even as the overall rate for residents climbed to 83%, according to the CMS data...

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https://www.propublica.org/article/dont-you-work-with-old-people-many-elder-care-workers-still-refuse-to-get-covid-19-vaccine



- Ashley Lucas, (L), and her sister Heidi are both health care professionals and have opposing views on the COVID-19 vaccine.