Amid new wave of virus, Florida skeptics reconsider vaccines

CALLAHAN, Florida – In a rural part of northeast Florida where barely half of the people have been vaccinated against the coronavirus, Roger West had no problem telling others he was “decidedly anti-vaccination.”

The co-owner of the weekly Westside Journal used his voice as a columnist to widely share his doubts about the vaccine and his distrust of health experts in the United States who have urged everyone to get hold of it.

“I don’t trust the federal government,” West wrote recently. “I don’t trust Dr Fauci, I don’t trust the medical profession, or the pharmaceutical giants.”

But something made him change his mind: two of West’s close friends fell ill with the virus and a third died. Shaken and stressed, he prayed for guidance. Then when his mother and another relative both urged him to get the vaccine, he took it as a sign from God. West went to the Winn Dixie supermarket and rolled up his sleeve for the first of two injections of the Moderna vaccine.

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“All of a sudden it hit very close to where I live,” he said.

The West is not alone. In this interior region of Nassau County, sandwiched between Jacksonville and the Okefenokee Swamp on the Georgia-Florida line, a devastating resurgence of the coronavirus is even forcing some die-hard skeptics to reconsider vaccines.

For the week ending July 29, the county of 89,000 recorded 810 new cases of the coronavirus. At that time, that was the highest rate in Florida, one of the epicenters of a nationwide spike in infections caused by the highly contagious delta variant.

Some county residents who thought the pandemic was all but over saw several family members suddenly infected in the latest wave. A young woman from Callahan, a town of about 1,000, saw her fiance, mother and grandmother all die of COVID-19 within a week.

“I’ve seen fear take hold of people like never before,” said Dwight Allen, pastor of a 200-member congregation at The Anchor Church of God. When the members ask him questions on the spot, Allen tells them he got stung without any side effects.

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Dr Phillips Cao, a family doctor who treats patients at a University of Florida health clinic at Callahan, said many older people in the area received coronavirus vaccines months ago, while the young adults repelled them because the infections decreased sharply in the spring.

“Everyone thought it was sort of dying out or going away. … Then you brought in this new variant, ”he said. “It was just ripe for another bad push.”

Before July 4, Cao said, he may be seeing a coronavirus patient every two weeks. Now, he says, he often tests seven patients every day. Five of them usually come back positive for the virus, and often two are so sick that he sends them to the hospital.

The surge in infections could push more people to get vaccinated. State health data shows nearly 4,400 people were vaccinated in Nassau County during the three-week period ending August 12 – enough to increase the county’s total immunization count by nearly 11%.

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Before this latest wave of the virus, Callahan Funeral Home had not made any arrangements for COVID-19 victims since April. It has since changed. Owner Ellis McAninch said he oversaw the funerals of five people who have died from the virus since July – more than half of his total activity in the past month.

Despite his age, proximity to virus deaths, chronic lung disease and his own recent battle with COVID-19, McAninch, 61, still had not been vaccinated when he recently spoke to a reporter. He initially said he was wary of how quickly plans were developed. But then he decided he had waited too long to make up his mind.

“I should have done this already,” he said. “Now it’s just time to come together.”

Although vaccine development has been exceptionally rapid, it has been the culmination of many years of research. The vaccines have been in clinical trials involving thousands of people and have since been given to tens of millions of people over the past eight months without any serious safety concerns.

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Yet there are some who will not be influenced.

In Hilliard, a town of 3,100 residents in Nassau County, Frances Sims, 80, refuses to be vaccinated. Long before COVID-19, Sims said, she feared the vaccines required for school children would have harmful side effects and prompted some of her grandchildren to be exempted because of their religious beliefs.

After some of her extended family fell ill with the coronavirus, two of Sims’ children persuaded her husband to get the vaccine. But she won’t budge.

“Some of them are a little exasperated with me,” she said. “They say, ‘Mom, if you get it you might die,’ Sims said. “I trust the Lord to take care of me. If I die, it’s my time.

His son Kenny Sims, Hilliard city councilor, ended up getting stung in the spring after his employer announced plans to cut paid leave for workers exposed to the virus.

He’s glad he did. When the summer wave hit, Sims and his wife had to care for their adult son and daughter and a one-year-old grandson who caught the virus. He believes the vaccine protected him and his wife from the disease, although he is still not convinced that the injections are completely safe.

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“I’m not convinced this vaccine is the answer,” Kenny Sims said. “But I believe it’s the lesser of two evils.”

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon in Miami contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the pandemic at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic.