One of the first people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine in Cowlitz County, PeaceHealth family medicine physician Dr. Shawn Aaron fields questions about the vaccine almost every day.
Among the patients who haven’t gotten the vaccine, Aaron said many have questions and concerns, but only a small group are staunchly opposed to getting the shot.
“My opinion is the amount of people who will never get the vaccine is not all that large,” he said. “I think a lot of people are open to getting it, but they need more information. They need to talk to someone who can give them good information, but that’s hard to come by.”
The state and county have seen a “softening” of demand in the last few weeks. It’s unclear how many people haven’t gotten the vaccine because they don’t want it and how many just haven’t gotten around to it, according to the Department of Health.
Softening demand
In Washington, the seven-day average of doses given per day declined from 61,100 April 26 to about 42,880 as of Friday.
The vaccine allocation has remained fairly steady for the last several weeks, and the state is set to receive about 396,260 total doses for each of the next three weeks, according to the Department of Health.
As of Wednesday, 55.5% of state residents 16 and older have initiated vaccination, and 40.5% were fully vaccinated.
About 45% of Cowlitz County residents 16 and older had initiated vaccination, and 35.6% were fully vaccinated as of Wednesday.
Vaccine access in Cowlitz County has continued to improve, with appointments becoming easier to find and schedule, said County Health and Human Services Communications Manager Stefanie Donahue.
Kaiser Permanente’s Longview clinic has significantly increased its number of vaccine appointments, which initially were filled, said Public Relations Manager Debbie Karman.
“Over the last few weeks there has been a softening in demand, as is the case in many places,” Karman said in an email.
PeaceHealth has several vaccine appointments available through this week, when previously slots filled quickly.
Safeway announced Friday its pharmacies are taking walk-in COVID-19 vaccine patients with no appointments necessary.
People seem to like a no-appointment option, Donahue said. On May 2, just under 900 vaccine doses were administered at the Cowlitz County Event Center, with about 100 given to people without an appointment, she said.
The county plans to close the vaccine site at the end of the week and will focus on mobile clinics to make vaccines available throughout the community, Donahue said.
“Ultimately, we want to make it as easy as possible for people,” she said.
Misinformation
At PeaceHealth, Aaron asks all his patients if they’ve gotten the vaccine. If they haven’t, he offers to answer their questions.
“A vast majority are relieved by that,” he said. “When people get good information, they’re generally a little more likely to overcome those hesitancies.”
One common concern people have is how quickly the vaccines were developed, so Aaron said he explains to patients it wasn’t a “rush job.”
Vaccine developers were able to do everything on a compressed timeline because they were funded, he said.
Some people have questions about the speed of the phase three clinical trials, when the vaccine is tested on thousands of people, Aaron said.
For other vaccines, the trials typically take longer because researchers have to wait until enough people get the disease to tell the difference between the vaccine and the placebo, Aaron said. With the COVID-19 vaccine, the illness already was so prevalent, it took a lot less time, he said.
“It was a firehose of data,” Aaron said.
Patients often express concern about side effects, and Aaron explains what to expect.
“You may get unwell for a day or two but it’s a small price to pay for the protection you’re going to get,” he said. “It’s a sign your immune system is working.”
Aaron said many patients are hesitant because of the conflicting information about vaccines and they don’t know what to believe.
“There’s been a lack of trust across all political leanings, all races, it’s not specific to any one group,” he said. “They’re relieved when I’m willing to sit down with them and explain how they were developed, why they’re safe, what are the real risks and the problems if I don’t get it.”
Aaron encourages people to be careful about where they get information and realize “there’s a lot of people out there giving misinformation and outright lying.”
Research can be difficult and Aaron recommends people with questions look at peer-reviewed sites, like the American College of Physicians, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Mayo Clinic. He also suggests people talk to their primary care providers.
Encouraging vaccinations
The slower vaccination pace concerns health officials because the quicker people are vaccinated, the quicker the country can get back to “something more like a normal life,” Aaron said.
Another concern is as COVID-19 transmission continues, there is more opportunity for mutations and new variants of the virus to develop, Aaron said. The more times a virus mutates, the higher the chance it will change enough so that a vaccine will no longer be effective, he said.
The vaccines currently still protect against the variants spreading now, Aaron said.
“But the more we let this churn, the faster those things are going to start cropping up,” he said.
Local and state officials are pushing to make the vaccine as accessible as possible to help reach people who are unvaccinated.
PeaceHealth has begun offering vaccines at its clinics so people can get them during a regular doctor’s appointment.
The state Department of Health is encouraging vaccine providers to have doses ready for people when they come in, rather than focusing on large-scale vaccination clinics.
“Ultimately it’s up to community members to make sure we’re successful with this,” State Secretary of Health Dr. Umair Shah said Wednesday. “This is all about everyone together, and unfortunately if we don’t work together, we won’t achieve the vaccination coverage that’s going to be adequate to continue to fight this pandemic.”
Aaron said some official messaging hasn’t been great about giving people hope. Focusing more on what people can do once they are vaccinated may help some people on the fence decide to get the shot, he said.
The vaccine’s obvious benefit is preventing illness in those inoculated and others around them.
Fully vaccinated people can gather with each other and unvaccinated people at low risk from the illness without wearing face masks or social distancing, according to the Department of Health.
The CDC last last month eased its guidelines, saying that fully vaccinated people don’t need to wear face masks outdoors unless they are in a large crowd.
Fully vaccinated people also can travel within the U.S. without worrying about testing or quarantine, Acting Assistant Secretary Michele Roberts said during a briefing Wednesday.
“If you get vaccinated now, you will be fully vaccinated by the time summer rolls around,” she said. “This is really the path for us to make everyone safer and open up our businesses and the economy.”
