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As Massachusetts first responders stood next to receive the coronavirus vaccine, the Auburn Police Department, like many law enforcement agencies across the state, questioned their officers earlier this this month to see how many of them plan to get vaccinated against viral respiratory infection.
The results were convincing. Less than half of the department’s members, 29 officers, said they planned to be vaccinated, while 31 said no, with the town’s police chief among those who chose not to be vaccinated. get vaccinated.
“Considering my age and the fact that I have no underlying health problems, if I caught COVID, I would have a more than 99% chance of surviving,” said the police chief of ‘Auburn, Andrew J. Sluckis Jr..
The 56-year-old police chief stressed that the long-term side effects of the newly developed vaccine are still unknown, and unlike previous vaccines which took years to develop, those for COVID-19 have taken month.
“I’m going to take my 99 to 1 odds of not getting the vaccine,” Sluckis said. “You couldn’t pay me to take it.”
Auburn’s results are not atypical.
Authorities in Massachusetts have said a number of first responders are not planning to be vaccinated, whether for allergies or personal reasons. While the split isn’t close to 50-50, as it is in Auburn, the number of those who choose not to get the shot is significant.
“People have legitimate concerns,” Sluckis said.
For many residents, however, coronavirus vaccines, like those made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, have been a godsend, a light at the end of the tunnel amid a pandemic that has wreaked monumental havoc across the world. , no country seeing a higher number of infections or deaths linked to the virus than in the United States.
First responders and others who have been on the front lines of the pandemic have witnessed it firsthand.
Many Massachusetts police and firefighters – in Boston, Attleboro, Worcester, Springfield and other communities – have contracted COVID-19 at different times during the public health crisis, and several have been hospitalized with the virus.
Among them, Norton Det. Sgt. Stephen Desfosses, who was recently sedated and intubated after contracting the virus as well as pneumonia and the flu in early December.
Other first responders, such as Taunton Police Officer John Borges and Rutland Police Officer John D. Songy, have died from a viral respiratory infection.
As part of the state’s three-phase plan for the deployment of the coronavirus vaccine, first responders are expected to receive vaccination doses as early as Jan.11, officials said. Their vaccinations follow those of other at-risk demographic groups, including frontline workers in hospitals and residents of long-term care facilities.
Firefighters in Quincy, Massachusetts were among the state’s first responders to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. As officials seek to roll out more doses of the vaccine, however, many police and firefighters say they do not plan to be vaccinated. (Friends of the Quincy Fire Department, IAF Local 792)
On December 31, Quincy firefighters became among the first in their profession in Massachusetts to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a Facebook post from the town’s firefighters union.
Other municipalities continue to plan for the inevitable administration of vaccines.
The towns of Ashland, Hopkinton, Northborough, Southborough and Westborough announced Thursday that they are teaming up to coordinate a vaccination clinic for all public safety workers and first responders in their communities.
“This is a critical step for first responders to be able to ensure their personal safety and that of their families and loved ones as we face the pandemic together,” said Mark Leahy, executive director of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and former Northborough Police Chief. “People need to protect themselves, their families, loved ones and colleagues.”
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine has already proven to be reliable. Both vaccine candidates underwent full-scale testing for months and were cleared for use by the federal government earlier this month, each showing nearly 95% effective at the end of their trials.
No serious safety concerns have been observed in vaccine trials either, and adverse effects from immunization candidates have been limited, according to Pfizer and Moderna.
Efficacy and safety data for the tens of thousands of people who have participated in the Pfizer and Moderna vaccination routes will be tracked for another two years, according to the companies.
Yet a significant portion of the world’s population is wary of vaccines, skeptical, like Sluckis, of the rapid development timeline and how vaccinations can impact the human body in the long run.
Sixty to 70 percent of Auburn firefighters, for example, plan to get vaccinated, leaving 40 to 30 percent who do not, according to city fire chief Stephen Coleman.
“It’s a little over half. It’s probably closer to 70% for us who get it, ”the fire chief said, adding that he was among the majority of those planning to get the vaccine.
Some members of the department who do not plan to be vaccinated know they will have an allergic reaction if they do, he added.
Coleman pointed out that firefighters in Auburn and other communities, especially those with dual paramedic roles, regularly come into contact with patients with COVID-19, making the need for vaccinations more pressing.
“We’re just in closer contact with really sick people,” he says.
The sentiment of the fire chief was echoed by Sluckis, who noted that if he was a firefighter and not a police officer, his opinion of receiving the vaccine would likely change.
“If I was working on the ambulance and transporting COVID-positive people to hospital daily, I would choose to take the vaccine,” he said. “But I don’t work in this capacity. Under my set of circumstances, I wouldn’t take it. If you are working in the hospital with patients with COVID, I would probably go for the vaccine, but as a police officer these are completely different circumstances.
Auburn Fire Department. (Google Maps)
The percentage of Auburn firefighters planning to get vaccinated appears to match the number of other fire departments in the state, according to Rich MacKinnon Jr., president of the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts (PFFM). The union represents more than 12,000 firefighters and emergency medical technicians across the Commonwealth.
In the Boston Department, about 60% of firefighters want to be vaccinated, and based on surveys from other departments around the state, about 60-70% of firefighters in the Commonwealth as a whole plan to get vaccinated. vaccinate, according to MacKinnon.
The high risk of exposure to COVID-19 at work is one of the main reasons firefighters need to be vaccinated as soon as possible, he argued.
“We’ve had firefighters in intensive care units, hospitals,” MacKinnon said. “Currently (as of December 31), we have 802 members with the virus and 615 in quarantine. The more we keep responding, the more exposures we encounter. Our COVID responses have obviously increased as the numbers have increased. It’s a risk that we gladly accept, but that’s why we need to be among the first to get vaccinated. “
Efforts to get Massachusetts firefighters vaccinated have come to light in recent weeks, with the PFFM lambasting the state for its plan to vaccinate first responders.
MacKinnon claimed the state did not have a viable plan to vaccinate firefighters in towns and cities in Massachusetts, instead leaving the task of vaccinating municipal first responders to local boards of health, many of whom differ significantly in size. and their resources.
According to MacKinnon, where a firefighter can go for a shot, when he can get it and who will get him shot are some of the basic questions the state has yet to answer.
“We are seeing our firefighter brothers and sisters across the country and even in neighboring states getting vaccinated now,” MacKinnon noted. “There are a lot of unanswered structural problems.”
Contrary to the drive to get firefighters vaccinated, the effort to get Massachusetts police vaccinated against COVID-19 has not received as much attention. However, agents’ attitudes towards the vaccine may improve as more people get vaccinated, according to Leahy.
Police across Massachusetts have been questioned for weeks about their attitudes toward the vaccine, whether they have good, bad, or indifferent opinions about it.
At first, many officers expressed negative attitudes towards the vaccine, but opinions slowly changed to become more confident about the vaccine, according to Leahy.
“A month ago there was a lot of hesitation, and there seemed to be a lot of worry about the unknown,” he said. “Now the wind has really turned to, ‘How soon can we do this? “
“Positive attitudes strongly prevail,” he added.
Tragedies involving police officers, such as Borges’ death in Taunton, have shown how important it is for first responders to get vaccinated, according to Leahy.
“I honestly hope people take this as a wake-up call,” he said. “This is important and first responders are significantly exposed to the virus in their daily work.”
Although Leahy and MacKinnon believe it is important for first responders to get vaccinated, they are reluctant to say there should be a warrant. The two said the coronavirus vaccine was a personal decision.
There is no indication that authorities will require first responders to get vaccinated. Springfield and Worcester Police Department spokespersons said officers would not be required to do so, and Massachusetts state police officials declined to comment when asked.
“We are finalizing the logistics for administering vaccines to members of the Department. We plan to administer the vaccine at regional MSP facilities so as to avoid shortages of coverage in barracks and units, and we hope to be able to start immunizations in January, ”a spokesperson for the MSP said. state police.
In Auburn, the city manager along with the community police and fire chiefs discussed whether to require officers and firefighters to get vaccinated. They chose to make the vaccinations voluntary, according to Sluckis.
“I don’t think you should be able to apply a vaccine which, in my opinion, is still experimental,” the police chief said. “It doesn’t feel right to me.”
Officials from the state’s COVID-19 command center and the public safety executive office were scheduled to meet with first responders on Thursday to review planning for the vaccination process. More information will soon be available on the vaccine deployment, according to a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services.
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