To the Editor:
Sema K. Sgaier outlines the four different “personas” of vaccine-hesitant Americans, arguing that to address reluctance, “we need to go county by county and ZIP code by ZIP code, offering specific, localized solutions.”
Schools can help. As trusted community-based institutions, schools are filled with teachers, special educators, social workers and office staff who are well equipped to listen empathetically and address delicate matters like misinformation, complacency, fear and distrust of science that feed vaccine hesitancy.
At our school in Brooklyn, we have created a campaign to understand and address hesitancy. Through town halls and outreach, we are creating safe spaces to hear about concerns. Our teachers and students are digging into the science, data and history of the pandemic and vaccine development. We’re using social media and newsletters to provide easy-to-understand information, translated into multiple languages. We are preparing to set up v
Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics, writes that some danger will still exist when things return to “normal.”
When the vaccine was first offered, many of my peers had questions. Loreto Ferri, 51, who sports a gray pushback hairdo, has been in nearly 17 years for robbing banks with notes. His nickname, which his grandmother gave him years ago, is Cheech; he’s a bit bitter because in January he was denied parole for the third time, just as a wave of Covid-19 came to Sullivan. When the corrections officer offered the vaccine initially, Cheech said he would take it, he told me. Then a few weeks later he told me that “with these blood clots” and other things he was hearing, he was having second thoughts, adding that he thought he had already had Covid-19 last year.
Opinion | This Is the Wrong Way to Distribute Badly Needed Vaccines nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Aaron E. Carroll, a professor of pediatrics, writes that some danger will still exist when things return to “normal.”
A doctor attached a cannula to Ms. Thakur’s nose and administered a continuous flow of oxygen at 50 liters per minute. She struggled to maintain her oxygen saturation rate at 80, way below the normal level of 95.
“Is she going to make it?” a junior doctor asked. The older doctor didn’t reply. Ms. Thakur is still fighting for her life. She is 27.
When Ms. Thakur was admitted, the doctors at the G.I.M.S. were also treating a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy. A ventilator helped them push her oxygen saturation rate up to 80 percent. One evening, after a sonography showed a healthy baby, somersaulting inside her belly, the doctors found themselves debating whether they could operate on her for C-section. Administering anesthesia to operate on the mother would lower her oxygen saturation rate to dangerous levels.
Opinion | Why Is Covid Killing So Many Pregnant Women in India? nytimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from nytimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.