“Don’t you work with old people?”
Amid a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” more than 40 percent of the nation’s nursing home and long-term health care workers have yet to receive vaccinations, and many simply refuse. Florida, the second lowest-vaccinated state, had a rate of just under 46 percent among its nursing home and long-term care staff. BY J E N N Y D E A M , RYA N G A B R I E L S O N A N D B I A N C A F O R T I S , P R O P U B L I C A
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hey 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 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.
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either 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 (CMS) 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 seven months after the first vaccines became available to medical professionals, only 59 percent of staff at the nation’s nursing homes and other long-term care facilities are fully or partially vaccinated — with eight states reporting an average rate of less than half, according to CMS data updated last week.
Twenty-three individual facilities had vaccination rates of under 1 percent, the data showed. Staff vaccinations have lagged even as the overall rate for residents climbed to 83 percent, according to the CMS data. The strong vaccination percentage among nursing home residents is credited, in part, to an early campaign to bring the vaccine directly to facilities. That suggests availability is not necessarily the issue behind staff going without. So, what is? The question defies easy answers. Vaccine refusal is regional and often aligns not only with individuals’ political alignment but also with their preferred news sources and which social media they follow. Last week, President Joe Biden took aim at Facebook and other social media giants for failing to police vaccine misinformation that amplifies conspiracy theories and discourages people from getting vaccinated. “They’re killing people,” he said, directly blaming the platforms. On Monday, he recast the accusation to say it was specific individuals posting dangerous information who are culpable. On Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell pleaded to “anyone out there willing to listen: Get vaccinated.” While not mentioning skeptics specifically — including those in his own party — the Republican leader urged the unvaccinated to ignore “demonstrably bad advice.” COVID-19 cases are now surging in every state, with new
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JULY 28-AUG. 3, 2021 ● ORLANDO WEEKLY
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