Yup. Watching the joy and relief of people getting their Covid vaccine never gets old. It got a little awkward just standing in the corner watching people so I went back to my seat. But there was a slow but steady group of folks getting jabbed.
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One of my mother’s home healthcare aides, who is Black, was hesitant about getting vaccinated. What changed her mind was when my mother and the other aid (who is white) both enthusiastically signed up for the shot. I dunno if there’s a global solution to this. There are a lot of reasons for Black Americans to be distrustful of healthcare.
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oh
I doubt there’s any one thing that will be the magic light switch for all 40 million African-Americans, who are not a monolithic group. But I think vaccine enthusiasm, time to see that the side effects aren’t that dire, seeing black celebrities* get vaccinated, seeing their friends (black and white and every other race) getting vaccinated, making accessibility a priority and more will all play a role.
Black doctors making PSAs might help too, or even black actors known for playing doctors (“I’m not a doctor but I play one on TV” and then something about how great the vaccine is.) Eriq LaSalle and Donald Faison immediately spring to mind but I know there’s others… too bad Bill Cosby is no longer a good choice for this sort of thing.
*I know Barack and Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey were all vaccinated and made a big deal of it, so that’s good, and I’m sure lots of other black celebrities are doing the same… every little bit helps, I’m sure.
It looks like the US is likely to have higher levels of infections for a good long while then.
They are now talking about giving the US a “green” travel rating in the UK, but that seems to be more political/economic than reality warrants.
The letters are mostly for the older folks.
We can also book online, but that is obviously a problem for less saavy older folks who don’t use internet much (it was hard to get them to order online as well during the first lockdown in March 2020. We had to volunteer to bring the groceries to them).
This seems negative. Herd immunity isn’t the be-all-end-all. Israel is at 54% vaccinated and under 1 case / 100,000 with very few/0 deaths most days.
I guess this is where we disagree on this subject.
I do not think they are “crazy”(try to avoid that term in general), but I do think it is highly irrational** for a healthy individual to look at the individual discomfort of a second (or first shot) and decide that is just too much for them considering all that we have gone through as a society over the past year. Yes, risk is low for someone in their 20s, but it is not non-existent as we are now seeing in other countries.
And I do not think you should just sweep away the other risk of “long covid” and impact of extending the pandemic when considering if it is irrational decision to skip vaccination because “I am young and healthy and don’t need it.”
**historically exploited minority communities that have a rational distrust of the government are clearly exempt from this blanket statement. Just to be clear. We can have a whole other thread about that distrust, and what can be done to assuage those fears, if even possible.
Yeah, that was a dumb comment on my part. And it looks like Hispanics lag Blacks, and going forward, the issue is likely to be politically conservative men, and not minorites, who are avoiding getting vaccinated.
But what we went through in the past year was before the elderly could be vaccinated. Vaccines aren’t perfect, of course, but there’s a cost-benefit analysis, and the cost is a little greater for the young, and the benefit a lot less.
Personally, i think the risk of long covid tips the scales, on a personal level, for young adults. But the data on that is still pretty hard to read.
There’s also the societal benefit of being less likely to spread it, of course. But it’s not as if there’s any hope of eradicating this disease – it has lots of animal hosts.
Giving people a paid day off to recover would go a long way towards equity. I dunno if there’s a good mechanism to make that happen, though.
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Honestly for me a big part of wanting to get vaccinated is just so I can say I was vaccinated and thus won’t face any restrictions for going out, mask wearing, etc., but the fear of side effects is probably my biggest deterrent which is why I’ve pushed it out until after actuarial exam day.
We still have the complication that while adults can be fully vaccinated, children are not..
And based on the latest research from the UK, about 10% of children who are infected develop long Covid.
That is a frightening figure.
My brother, politically conservative anti masker, who had been in the “probably not” camp just randomly decided to get his first shot the other day. At a grocery store that had walk in appointments available and he decided to step in and get it.
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I expect vaccines to be approved for children 12-15 by this fall. And the risks for the pre-pubescent are much lower.
6-8% is no a small number for long covid.
For small kids.
Sure, they don’t “die”, but they are then faced with seemingly lifelong medical issues.
Thats the way forward imho.
Make it stupidly easy to get the shot.
J&J makes the most sense in this scenario.
I couldn’t tell what he denominator is, though. I think it’s just kids with symptomatic covid.
I think we should be cautious about the conclusions. “Long COVID” isn’t well defined and even in the link the stat is:
“Data show that persistent symptoms are less common in children than adults. Between 10–18% of children aged 2–16 years had symptoms 5 weeks after a positive test for the virus. This preliminary data and study design limit the strength of conclusions that can be drawn, so larger well-designed studies are needed to clarify what this means for children in the long-term.”
That’s a lot less bold than ~10% of children being afflicted for life.
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I remember stories early in the pandemic where folks who had moderate cases of COVID experienced changes to their cardiovascular systems even after they were otherwise recovered, as well as observations that even asymptomatic individuals seemed to show signs of impairment in some organs.
Have there been follow-ups? It was those reports of long-term degradation that really drove my wife and I being almost religious in our pandemic protocols.
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I’m a little concerned about that. Hubby and I, while not super fit to start with, still have a harder time doing what we used to. And I’m not really sure what to ask my doctor to check.