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New York had some of the lowest vaccination rates for nursing home staff and workers in any part of the state, according to new data released by the state this week. Sixty-five percent of residents and 40% of workers had received gunfire on Wednesday. The regions of the North Country and the Capital had the highest vaccination rates.
Overall, the data shows that residents of long-term care facilities are taking vaccines en masse, while staff in skilled nursing facilities lag behind. Statewide, 72 percent of residents and 44 percent of workers had been vaccinated.
New York nursing homes were devastated by COVID-19 at the start of the pandemic. Nearly 13,000 residents have died, the findings released by the state only Thursday after the release of a report from the attorney general’s office accusing the state of undercounting the dead.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Thursday that 18,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, originally planned for long-term care facilities, had been released for wider distribution.
“I’m not surprised; we’ve also seen hesitation among staff around influenza vaccines in the past,” said Dr. Jasmine Travers, assistant professor at the Rory Meyers College of Nursing at the University of New York, which said studies tend to note higher vaccination rates in hospitals and among nurses and physicians compared to lower paid certified nursing assistants who provide most of the practical care in treatment rooms. nurses.
This model has spread in the COVID-19 pandemic. Even before applicants were given emergency clearance, a UCLA health system survey in November showed nurses were four times more likely to resist COVID-19 vaccines than doctors.
It is difficult to say why this is happening. Some experts blame the general misinformation because surveys show rates of COVID-19 vaccine hesitation among healthcare workers are comparable to those of the lay public.
LaRay Brown, the CEO of One Brooklyn Health, which has three hospitals in Brooklyn, was surprised that staff members weren’t rushing to get vaccinated, but also pointed out, “Most of our employees are people of color, and they learned the story of the ways the US government has not done so well from people of color, ”referring to Tuskegee’s study and systemic racism in general.
Others suggest healthcare workers take their time making a decision, while others cite potential blind spots in job training. Travers said the cause needs to be identified as soon as possible.
“We really need to sit down and understand why nursing assistants refuse to be immunized,” Travers said, but “more so, that includes nursing assistants in the decision making.
“We did a very bad job, including a lot of essential nursing home workers,” she said.
With additional reporting by Fred Mogul
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