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Opinion: Let's get vaccinated and finish this pandemic strong

Truth Be Told

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Despite supply shortages and delays, the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccinations in our community less than a year after the first case was documented is a scientific marvel.

Seeing vaccine selfies and photos of vaccination events provided me a feeling that’s eluded many of us in the past 12 months: Hope.

But as our community navigates the vaccination rollout, it’s clear there is a long road ahead to reach herd immunity. Developing a vaccine is one hurdle. Getting people vaccinated is another.

While Springfield-Greene County Health Department officials have said demand currently outweighs supply, that won’t always be the case. And it’s going to take more than our public health and hospital leaders beating the drum to reach the 70% community vaccination the Finish Strong Challenge outlined this month.

I believe business leaders should get involved to ensure high levels of participation when it’s our turn to roll up our sleeves. As many of you used your voice to encourage the wearing of face masks, now it’s time to promote this vaccine.

We’ve reported many times that “the virus is the economy” and we won’t see a return to normal business operations until this virus is controlled.

The need to build trust in this vaccine is clear. National surveys and local data show even if our community received enough doses for every resident, not everyone would get vaccinated.

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report published this month found 49% of adults surveyed would get a COVID-19 vaccine. That’s up from 39% in September but still short of what’s needed for community protection.

At CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield Communities, leaders say only half of all employees have elected to receive the vaccine so far, even as our state moves on to vaccinating more subsets of the population. If this level of participation is an indication of community adoption, we may be in trouble.

The challenge is not unique to our community. The Associated Press reported some health care workers opted out because they did not want to be a guinea pig for the vaccines. The CDC report finds 30% of people surveyed worry about side effects and 12% don’t trust the government. Just as disinformation surrounding COVID-19 prevention and treatment has been rampant in the past year, the antidote is not immune to myths.

At CoxHealth, Vice President of Clinical Services Ashley Casad says there is concern among employees that the vaccine causes infertility. While that’s not supported by science, fear is a powerful motivator. Casad says she estimates roughly a quarter of CoxHealth’s 12,600 co-workers are of childbearing age. The health system has hosted internal talks to debunk myths and answer employee questions to boost its 53% vaccination rate.

“I don’t think we realized when people were first signing up that there was so much hesitancy,” she says. “Our goal is certainly that we would expect health care workers to be vaccinated at a higher rate than the general population.”

She points to the CoxHealth physician vaccine adoption rate as a bright spot at 85%.

Mercy Springfield Communities President Craig McCoy says he initially expected a higher percentage of co-workers to receive the vaccination than 50% among nearly 10,000 employees. But much related to this pandemic has been hard to predict.

McCoy says concerns on fertility were prevalent at Mercy, too. But he notes some co-workers wanted to give their spots to more at-risk populations and some clinics wanted to space out vaccinations among employees to prevent too many people being out of the office, if side effects occurred.

He says leaders speaking openly and leading by example is one way to boost vaccine adoption.

But he shares another area of concern: “How do we keep in the forefront the importance of getting people vaccinated as COVID numbers go down? I’m hopeful and prayerful that people don’t lose sight of the significance of this disease and the importance of getting vaccinated,” he says.

In the workplace, here are ideas for business leaders to boost vaccine usage:

• condense information from the Health Department and health systems to share with employees;

• cover any costs to receive the doses;

• provide paid time off to receive the shot and recover from any short-term side effects; and

• share your “why” for becoming vaccinated.

Vaccinations will make our workplaces and community safer and are a worthwhile investment.

We’re all weary of COVID-19. But think of the sacrifices and losses we’ve endured in the past year. With the finish line far off but in sight, I challenge our business community to keep wearing masks, social distancing and getting vaccinated when we can.

We entered this pandemic as a community; we’ll make it through as a community.

Springfield Business Journal Features Editor Christine Temple can be reached at ctemple@sbj.net.

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