How states with high vaccination rates are getting shots into arms
California has reported administering 51% of its vaccines (per capita), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Author: Ja Nel Johnson (ABC10) Published: 6:23 PM PST January 29, 2021 Updated: 6:23 PM PST January 29, 2021
SACRAMENTO, Calif COVID-19 vaccines have been shipped to states across the country. Administering the shots has proven to be challenging for a number of reasons, whether it s a shortage of doses or working through a phased system.
But some states are vaccinating people successfully.
Here s how three states with vaccination administration rates above 70% have been able to do it.
Many D.C.-area nursing home workers are declining vaccines
Rachel Chason, Rebecca Tan, Jenna Portnoy and Erin Cox, The Washington Post
Jan. 27, 2021
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WASHINGTON - A large percentage of nursing home workers in the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia have declined to take the coronavirus vaccine, officials say, presenting a major challenge in the region s plans to protect its most vulnerable residents.
Nursing home workers were first offered the vaccine in late December and early January, along with residents of long-term care facilities and other health-care workers. Their wariness, providers and union representatives say, is fueled by online misinformation about the vaccine and historical mistrust of the medical system of which they are a part.
Jan 19, 2021
Officials working to get the COVID-19 vaccine to those who need it most have run into an unfathomable problem. Health care workers are buying into the nonsense that the vaccine might not be safe, and are refusing the shot. Not all of them are so bull-headed, of course. Many are doing the right thing and getting the shots so they are safe AND they are doing their part to keep their patients safe.
But in both nursing homes and hospitals across the country, a disturbing percentage of workers are falling prey to entirely unfounded fears helped along by the lies and conspiracy theories spread via social media and other newsertainment outlets that they might experience worrisome side effects if they get vaccinated.
Mississippi s state health officer, Dr. Thomas Dobbs, said the partnership has been a fiasco.
The state has committed 90,000 vaccine doses to the effort, but the pharmacies had administered only 5% of those shots as of Thursday, Dobbs said. Pharmacy officials told him they re having trouble finding enough people to staff the program.
Dobbs pointed to neighboring Alabama and Louisiana, which he says are vaccinating long-term care residents at four times the rate of Mississippi. We re getting a lot of angry people because it s going so slowly, and we re unhappy too, he said.
Many of the nursing homes that have successfully vaccinated willing residents and staff members are doing so without federal help.