Monday, more nursing homes across the country will get a Covid-19 vaccine, but the impact of the massive effort will hinge in part on winning front-line workers like LaShundra Williams, who say they are skeptical of the shots.
Ms. Williams, 40, is a Registered Nursing Assistant at St. James Veterans Home in St. James, Missouri, and says she is unlikely to agree to have the injections, even though her son is currently ill with Covid-19. She recently watched a webcast by nursing home doctors about the safety and benefits of the vaccines, hoping for reassurance, but was not convinced.
She still fears that a vaccine could worsen her anemia, and she thinks the injections are being approved for wide use too soon.
“It’s too new,” she said. “I just don’t feel comfortable.”
The federal long-term care vaccination program, led by CVS Health Corp.
and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.,
begins this week with the wide rollout in a dozen states, with hundreds of facilities to be visited in the coming days. But surveys have shown that many staffers are reluctant to get the shots, and some have already refused them in the limited number of facilities where vaccinations have been administered.
At the nursing home in John Knox Village, in Pompano Beach, Florida, which became one of the first U.S. facilities to receive the vaccine last Wednesday, about a third of staff members participated, according to Mark Raynor, director of health care. . “It comes down to fear of the unknown,” he said.
Last Monday, more than 50 hospitals and health departments across the country received the newly approved Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech. Photo: UPMC
In Chester, W.Va., the Orchards at Foxcrest, which includes a nursing home, assisted living center, and independent units, about 65% of eligible staffers agreed that they would receive the vaccine Thursday and Friday. Matt Murray, vice president of operations, said the company has launched an extensive information campaign. The community has been dealing with a recent outbreak of Covid-19, including two deaths, he said, and executives hope more staffers will agree to take photos on a later visit.
After the outbreak is over, Mr. Murray said the community plans to require unvaccinated workers to wear N95 masks at all times, except while eating or drinking. Those who have received the two required exposures may use less restrictive surgical masks, and only in patient areas. “The goal is really to encourage people to get vaccinated,” as well as to protect residents and workers, he said.
Genesis Healthcare Inc.
and ProMedica Senior Care, major nursing home operators who had people vaccinated in the first institutions last week, both said they aimed to have only about half of their staff get an injection on the first visit so their administration could be staggered. They were able to fill all available slots.
Despite efforts to strengthen testing and protective equipment in nursing homes, cases and deaths within the facilities continued to increase, followed closely by the increase in the spread of the virus outside their walls. In the week ending Dec. 6, there were 4,525 deaths in nursing homes, according to data released Thursday by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That was a 56% increase from the 2,893 deaths in the week ending November 15.
Researchers say workers exposed to the virus in their communities are likely to unknowingly pass it on to vulnerable nursing home residents, highlighting the urgent need to vaccinate workers. “If you have enough of your staff that are immune, they are less likely to introduce it into the building,” said Morgan Katz, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins University. Getting half the staff vaccinated is a bare minimum, and the facilities should aim to ensure everyone gets the photos, she said.
A survey of 1,676 American adults released by the Kaiser Family Foundation on Dec. 15 found that 71% would be sure or likely to receive a Covid-19 vaccine if it was found to be safe by scientists and offered for free. Among the groups with the highest vaccination reluctance were Republicans, people ages 30 to 49, rural residents, and black adults. Also, 29% of those who said they worked in a healthcare setting said they would certainly not or likely not be vaccinated.
In a mid-November survey of nursing home and assisted living staff in Indiana by Indiana University researchers, only 45% of 8,243 respondents said they would consider getting a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it was available. Others said they would like to take it later. The survey, accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, found that 70% of those who didn’t want to get the vaccine were concerned about side effects.
“There is just a lot of mistrust,” said Lori Porter, chief executive of the National Association of Health Care Assistants, an advocacy group, who in his own research found that nearly 72% of certified nursing assistants took the vaccine. “Many of my CNAs, their answers were, ‘Nobody cares about old people and nobody cares about us and we don’t intend to be guinea pigs.’ “
Ms. Carden, who worked at this facility in Bartlesville earlier this year, says she saw firsthand the impact of the coronavirus, but ultimately decided not to get the vaccine.
Photo:
Shane Brown for the Wall Street Journal
Nurses are generally paid low wages for working in facilities that are often sparsely staffed.
Zenobia Carden is a 35-year-old certified nursing assistant who worked in a nursing home earlier this year and is about to start a new job in a residence for people with developmental disabilities. She said she has seen firsthand the impact of the coronavirus, killing several residents of the facility where she worked. She wondered what to do, but eventually decided it was still too risky for her to get the vaccine.
Ms. Carden, who lives in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is concerned about possible long-term side effects, as well as shorter ones, such as headaches, because she already suffers from migraines.
“I’m scared,” she said. “It takes years to get a vaccine on the market, and for them to get out so quickly – I don’t trust it.”
Nursing home owners try to convince employees that the recordings are safe by holding webinars and other sessions to share information, getting top executives vaccinated publicly, and highlighting employees who choose to have the recordings early.
PruittHealth Inc., a company in Norcross, Georgia, with approximately 102 nursing homes and assisted living facilities, said that each staff member who receives the vaccine will receive a free breakfast at a Waffle House restaurant and will also be participating in an ongoing raffle that provides prices such as TVs. “We really want to create some excitement,” said Neil Pruitt, CEO.
Lawyers have said employers are generally legally allowed to mandate Covid-19 vaccines for employees, a view reinforced last week in guidelines released by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. But nursing home owners have said they don’t plan on needing the vaccine. Many facilities are already dealing with staffing problems after months of pandemic challenges.
—Jon Kamp and Jacob Gershman contributed to this article.
Write to Anna Wilde Mathews at [email protected] and Sarah Toy at [email protected]
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