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Three of his barbers were sick with Covid-19 last month. Two were able to resume work, while the third is still awaiting clearance. But the outbreak has served as a wake-up call to Taylor and the tight-knit community he has formed at Fade ‘Em All Barbershops.
“The hair salon is a place of transparency, truth, debate and brotherhood,” Taylor said. The biggest discussion at the store lately, he said, is whether to get vaccinated, especially as the number of Covid-19 cases has increased in the Las Vegas area.
Taylor said he was hospitalized with the virus last year – but was still reluctant to get the vaccine once it became widely available this spring.
Now, after doing some research and seeing the virus take hold of his friends and employees this summer, he has become a strong supporter of vaccines. It even teamed up with local health officials to open its stores as vaccination clinics on weekends.
In the past two weeks, 18 people have been vaccinated at its hair salons. The number may not seem like a lot, but Taylor takes comfort in knowing that every hit makes a difference as the Delta variant leads to rapid community spread.
“People who are like ‘Well that’s not 100% (protection)’ and I’m like, well, nothing is 100%. It’s not 100%, you will go home. you, but you put on a seat belt, “mentioned. “And this vaccine is a seat belt.”
Covid-19 has had a disproportionate effect on communities of color. Hispanic and non-Hispanic blacks are both about twice as likely to die from Covid-19 as non-Hispanic whites, according to the latest CDC data.
Life expectancy fell by 2.9 years for blacks, from 74.7 years to 71.8 years and by 1.2 years for whites, from 78.8 years to 77.6 years. Hispanics experienced the largest drop in life expectancy last year, falling by three years, from 81.8 years to 78.8 years.
The spread of the virus in Taylor’s barbershop is a shocking snapshot of reality across Nevada. Cases and hospitalizations are on the rise, but interest in vaccinations is leveling off.
State and federal authorities across the country have partnered with local community leaders, such as pastors and barbers, to encourage word-of-mouth vaccine evangelism – often seen as the most powerful way to persuade the skeptics.
Nevada, “fertile ground for new variants”
In early June, the county reported about 130 new cases per day in its 14-day moving average. But that number has risen dramatically, and the county reported 675 new cases on Tuesday.
Hospitalizations also jumped from 178 in mid-June to more than 900 this week in Clark County, according to state Covid-19 data. Recent numbers are starting to reach the similar peaks the county experienced during the 2020 summer wave, and county commissioners voted on Tuesday to require company employees to wear masks in indoor public spaces.
The White House has called the county a sustained hotspot for new infections, and the Biden administration has sent FEMA response teams to Nevada to help with vaccination efforts statewide.
A quarter or less of unvaccinated people said they would be likely to receive the vaccine under certain circumstances, according to the survey, which was conducted July 16-19 and comprised of a nationally representative sample of 1,048 adults Americans of the general population.
“A large majority are not convinced, which shows how this ‘vaccine reluctance’ might not budge anytime soon,” Ipsos said.
Dr Shadaba Asad, medical director of infectious diseases at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, said hospitals were better equipped to deal with the current outbreak than they were a year ago. The hardest part this time, she said, is knowing that the increase could have been avoided if more people had been vaccinated.
She attributes the recent increase in Covid cases to the unvaccinated population, calling them the “breeding ground” for the Delta variant and any other variants that may emerge.
“As long as you have a huge burden of the virus in your community, which is currently kept alive by unvaccinated people, the virus will mutate and new variants will emerge,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before you run into a variant where your vaccines don’t provide that level of protection. Unvaccinated people therefore pose a huge threat to the rest of us who are vaccinated,” because they are literally fertile ground for new variations. “
Disinterest in vaccines “really disheartening”, says district health official
Further north in Nevada, the vaccination rate is highest in Washoe County, which includes Reno, with 48% of the county’s total population fully vaccinated.
Next to the Reno Rodeo Arena, the county health department converted a parking lot into a mass vaccination site. But interest in Covid-19 vaccines has waned – as have car lines.
Kevin Dick, the Washoe County district health worker, said that at its peak, the county vaccination site was delivering 2,800 doses of vaccine per day. This week, that number has plunged to around 140 per day. He says other pharmacies in the area are also providing more vaccines, but overall, the immunization trend lines are down.
“It’s really disheartening. It’s frustrating,” Dick said. “We just need people to come together and do what is right for themselves and for their communities.”
Dick said one of the biggest threats to vaccination rates is the spread of the misinformation virus, especially false information about the vaccine affecting fertility. He said rumors were preventing a large faction of young people from getting the vaccine.
“People want to believe in more sensational things, and we know that in social media sensational misinformation travels faster than a true story,” Dick said.
In recent weeks, the state of Nevada has launched a weekly lottery to reward residents who initiate the vaccination process. The state will be awarding $ 5 million in prizes until the end of August, and the grand prize is a $ 1 million jackpot.
But even this vaccination effort has been hampered by anti-vaccine rowdies. In the first draw, hosted by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, a man with a megaphone shouted that vaccines “are destroying people” despite evidence that the vaccine has been given safely to tens of millions of people. .
As the man was escorted out of the coin toss by security, Sisolak quickly sought to reassure the crowd watching the vaccine’s safety.
“There is one person who doesn’t understand that vaccines are completely safe,” Sisolak said. “They’ve been tested and we’re helping save lives, that’s what we do.”
Jacqueline Howard of CNN contributed to this report.
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