Mass. vaccine rollout fraught with challenges of misinformation, distrust
Photo | Matt Wright
COVID-19 breakthrough cases have continued to rise.
Almost one out of six Massachusetts residents are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. But there's still hesitancy from many, often due to misinformation or distrust in the science, caregivers said in a health forum Thursday.
Those problems are especially acute in communities of color, panelists at the Massachusetts Health & Hospital Association web event said. Those are often the same communities that have been disproportionately affected by coronavirus cases.
"The speed that it came to the market was a concern," Dr. Sebastian Hamilton, Boston Medical Center's associate chief pharmacy officer for outpatient pharmacy services, said of his patients' worries. Adding to that, he said, was the involvement through much of the development process of the former President Donald Trump Administration.
[Related: Worcester nonprofits work to educate their skeptical populations on the COVID vaccine]
Dr. Ellana Stinson, the president of the New England Medical Association, has seen another familiar problem at the Reggie Lewis Center at Boston's Roxbury Community College, where a vaccination clinic is aimed at much of the city's underserved community. The greatest concern, she said, is misinformation. Many only feel comfortable after seeing others receive the vaccination first, and find that there aren't the harmful health effects they may have read or heard about.
In other cases, patients have told Greg Wilmot, the COO of the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, they don't expect to need a vaccine if they've already tested positive. They still need it, he said he tells them.
The three panelists urged health providers to tailor their messaging to address different concerns that arise. Each stressed the importance of trust and communication with patients.
[Related: Progress elusive as Worcester, state COVID cases rise]
Some question how a single-dose vaccine from Johnson & Johnson could be as effective as the more common two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, Stinson said. Hamilton has found a similar issue with explaining how some vaccines work with so-called mRNAs, which trigger an immune response in the body, and others using what are known as viral vectors. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use the former method, and Johnson & Johnson the latter.
Hamilton says he evokes to patients Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government's chief medical advisor: "The best vaccine is what's available."
He also cautions hesitant patients that just because the vaccines were brought to market quickly doesn't mean that much of the science wasn't already in place.
"Although it was called Warp Speed, it wasn't really warp speed," he said.
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Because informed people choose not to get a COVID vaccine does not mean that to is "...due to misinformation or distrust in the science..."! It may just mean that they have made the personal choice to not get the vaccine. That decision should be respected and not denigrated. However, it has been clear throughout the whole pandemic that "the science" has been soured by politics and is no longer pure.
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