Opinion | What do frontline health care workers and first responders know about COVID-19 vaccines that politicians and their public health advisers don’t?
According to a January analysis by Gallup, 51 percent of health care workers and first responders polled in December 2020 were unconvinced of the merits of getting vaccinated, even if the vaccine “was free, available, FDA approved and 90% effective.”
Gallup found these results especially concerning since those at highest risk of exposure to COVID-19—the professionals required to meet America’s health, safety, and critical economic needs and whom the National Academies of Engineering, Science and Medicine defines as “Tier 1A workers”—were the likeliest to refuse vaccination (34 percent).
The frontline workers proved to be as defiant as Gallup’s survey of their intentions anticipated. In California, more than half of Tehama County’s hospital workers at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital, an estimated 50 percent of frontline workers in Riverside County, and 20 percent to 40 percent in Los Angeles County refused the vaccine, according to a report in the L.A. Times.
In Georgia, according to an estimate in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, only 30 percent of health care workers have been inoculated. In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine reported that 60 percent of nursing-home workers refused the vaccine. In Texas, the Texas Tribune reported in February that home-health and assisted-living agencies may not be able to service their clients because so many caregivers are refusing to be vaccinated. A CDC survey of skilled-nursing facilities published in early February found that fewer than 40 percent of staff took at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
Outside the United States, frontline workers are likewise skeptical. On March 2, Reuters reported that at most half of the nursing staff in Switzerland’s medical sector, only 30 percent of the staff at Germany’s BeneVit Group care-home operator, and about half of the health workers in French care homes were willing to be vaccinated.
PBS, on the same day, reported that since “India started administering the second vaccine dose two weeks ago, half of the frontline workers and nearly 40 percent of health care workers have not shown up.” In Canada, CTV provided an anecdotal report that many long-term-care workers in Montreal are “flat-out refusing” to be inoculated.
For health care workers around the world, their dilemma is deciding who to believe. Their government employers and the pharmaceutical companies, who insist the vaccines’ benefits far outweigh the risks? Or their own eyes?
Many frontline workers see first-hand those who fall sick or die after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, and in the absence of independent analyses judge for themselves whether the vaccine is implicated. They noted 23 nursing-home deaths in Norway and hundreds of hospitalizations in Israel following vaccination.
Frontline workers also suffer from vaccinations themselves. As Reuters reported in February in an article entitled “AstraZeneca Vaccine Faces Resistance in Europe After Health Workers Suffer Side-Effects,” the adverse effects hitting health care workers have unexpectedly left large numbers unable to work, forcing hospitals to scramble to maintain services.
In France, the safety agency advised hospitals to stagger the inoculation of team members, to avoid disabling team functions.
In Sweden, two of the country’s 21 health care regions paused vaccinating their staff after 25 percent of the vaccinated suffered fever or flu-like symptoms.
In Austria, inoculations with a batch of vaccines were suspended after one vaccinated nurse died and another required hospitalization.
The Wall Street Journal reports that, to avoid being vaccinated, half of the health professionals scheduled in the German state of Saarland failed to show up for their appointment.
In response to the many concerns raised by frontline workers, the vaccine manufacturers, care-home operators, and the public-health authorities in all these countries offer bland reassurances, such as AstraZeneca’s statement that “the reactions reported are as we would expect” and the German Health Minister’s claim that “I would be vaccinated with it immediately.”
They also plan a plethora of public education campaigns. Partnership for Medicaid Home-Based Care, an industry advocacy group, launched a “Be Wise, Immunize” campaign to educate its workforce.
And all urge media and social media to be more vigilant in policing negative vaccination news. In offering pointers on how to debunk critics, the Columbia Journalism Review on Mar. 5 told media companies that “the first rule of reporting on mis/disinformation [is] don’t talk about the mis/disinformation” and suggested they “consider the practice of ‘pre-bunking’—that is, actively debunking or anticipating public questions and concerns rather than only reacting once false narratives have been popularized.”
Although studies show that such assurances and public-education campaigns—also known as propaganda—can reduce vaccine hesitancy, Gallup finds their effect is marginal: “The limited COVID-19 vaccine acceptance rates among all occupation groups show little movement since November 2020.”
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analysis agrees, and concludes that barriers to “staff member vaccination need to be overcome with continued development and implementation of focused communication and outreach strategies.”
Yet the CDC doesn’t explain why continued focused communication and outreach—i.e., more of the same—would overcome worker hesitancy, when workers don’t fully trust the data, or those who deliver the data. To overcome that trust barrier and win over the frontline workers—people who have every incentive to protect themselves—the media would need to lift the censorship, industry would need to subject its studies to independent scrutiny, and all would need to engage in reasoned debate rather than “trust-us” assurances.
This article was originally published by the The Epoch Times. It is reprinted with the permission of the author. Lawrence Solomon is a columnist, author, and executive director of the Toronto-based Consumer Policy Institute.
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15 Responses
This Covid 19 vaccine is a disaster on many levels. Most vaccines are tested for 3-15 years. With all the shock, paralysis, instant dementia, and death occurring within a very short time of receiving the immunizations tested for only 3 months, and no antibodies lasting for more than 3 months, why would we continue?
I applaud and fully support anyone who makes the choice to avoid these gene altering therapies. There is absolutely not anywhere near enough data and transparency (real honest truth) laid on the barrel head for anyone who still values rational thinking and decisions making.
In the first two stages of the trials, neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna gene therapies were shown to make any difference other than perhaps lessening the symptoms for a mild case of Covid. Wow! I can probably do that using nutrients.
The 90-95% effective rating was arrived at using the RRR (relative risk reduction) method of crunching the statistics. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would rather go by the ARR (absolute risk reduction) method of parsing through the data. That number is in the 1% area. Absolute results are at least 95% more relevant that relative results.
The FDA, and this is a shock, has always allowed vaccine efficacy to be calculated using RRR, which usually turns out to be 30-60% for most vaccines. Using ARR, again would result in most vaccines having about a 2% efficacy.
Pharma has failed miserably to prove to me that I should be willing or willingly under any method of coercion, legal or not, accept their experimental potions.
Hoping the skeptics will continue to follow their gut instincts including my own family! THE VACCINE IS SUICIDAL 1
And we have a ‘track record’ to look at : the disastrous Dengue vaccine/ Philippines; the H1N1 pandemic vaccine/ narcolepsy/cataplexy; HPV vaccine; the William Thompson testimony through his attorneys concerning data ‘revisions’ to show that the MMR vaccines do not cause autism in black boys under age 3.
I learn a lot from reading these articles and the comments. I have a wish that the vaccine promoters would actually be curious enough to investigate possible vaccine reactions and study why people might be more reactive rather than automatically issuing statements that pronounce each incident a co-incidence. That is not science, and the absence of curiosity makes us even more resistant to the propaganda. Why don’t they even mention the possibility that there could be long term side effects?
Using a much different perspective, I was suspicious from the start of this “warp-speed” vaccine development program.
So much attention is always put on the Covid-19 vaccine and the virus itself that I would be suspicious just by that level of attention given to these items.
With an overall survival/recovery rate of >99%, why the big push to vaccinate? As mentioned in an above posting, efficacy rates are dismal to say the least. And since this vaccine should not even be called a vaccine due to the technology being employed, this just scares the hell out of intelligent folks.
Fauci and Gates are not, and have never been interested in our overall health and viability, but more on global population reduction planning and eugenics.
I want no part of this poison!
Please read the data for yourselves to make an informed decision. You can find the Pfizer information on the Physicians for Informed consent website, a trusted source for data driven and factual information.
From the date provided up to 13 March 2021 of those about 4,000 persons who died AFTER vaccination (in Europe) I worked the risk of death per cases.
Percentage of death ration per reported reactions
Neoplasms benign, malignant and unspecified (incl
cysts and polyps) incl. 86 – 8 = 0.0932023255881% (1)
Hepatobiliary disorders incl. 155 – 13 = 0.08387096774% (2)
Cardiac disorders incl. 7,217 – 435 = 0.06027435222% (3)
Congenital, familial and genetic disorders incl. 40 – 2 = 0.05% (4)
Surgical and medical procedures incl. 247 – 12 = 0.04858299595% (5)
Renal and urinary disorders incl. 1178 – 51 = 0.04329371816% (6)
Infections and infestations incl. 9875 – 378 = 0.03827848101% (7)
Respiratory, thoracic and mediastinal disorders incl. 13,898 – 420 = 0.03022017556% (8)
Social circumstances incl. 376 – 11 = 0.02925531914% (9)
Investigations incl. 7360 – 150 = 0.02038043478% (10)
Vascular disorders incl. 6845 – 117 = 0.01709276844% (11)
Pregnancy, puerperium and perinatal conditions incl. 118 – 2 = 0.01694915254% (12)
Metabolism and nutrition disorders incl. 4408 – 72 = 0.01633393829% (13)
Injury, poisoning and procedural complications incl. 3,287 – 50 = 0.015211439% (14)
General disorders and administration site conditions incl. 118637 – 1566 = 0.01319992919% (15)
Immune system disorders incl. 2725 – 12 = 0.00440366975% (16)
Gastrointestinal disorders incl. 41,848 – 180 = 0.00430128082% (17)
Nervous system disorders incl. 9,807 – 337 = 0.00422268723% (18)
Blood and lymphatic system disorders incl. 9114 – 35 = 0.00136367911% (19)
Psychiatric disorders incl. 118 – 45 = 0.00632200056% (20)
Eye disorders incl. 5,099 – 4 = 0.0078446754% (21)
Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders incl. 17.363 – 31= 0.00178540574% (22)
Reproductive system and breast disorders 845 – 1 = 0.00118343195% (23)
Musculoskeletal and connective tissue disorders incl. 61,950 – 49 = 0.00079096045% (24)
Product issues 72 – 0 = 0% (25)
Endocrine disorders 99 – 0 = 0% (26)
Ear and labyrinth disorders 4,036 – 0 = 0% (27)
THE ABOVE FIGURES ARE BASED UPON WHAT WAS REPORTED AND IT IS NOT KNOWN TO ME HOW MANY UNREPORTED CASES THERE WERE OF REACTION/DEATH.
I for one have no desire to get jabbed but will leave it up to everyone to make their own INFORMED decision.
Straight from the horses mouth, so to speak. If the people who are seeing what is REALLY going on (and not companies who are just interested in Profits over People) are against these experimental gene therapies…I mean ‘vaccines”, then why would anyone in their right mind get them? It’s like playing Russian Roulette.
I know one person who died in their sleep (in their mid 70’s) after getting the jab and another who got mini strokes soon after being vaccinated. But I’m sure all this is pure coincidence. Yet neither people or their families would believe it was the jab that caused their problems.
I wonder how many people are REALLY dying from the shot.
The more media and governments clamp down on people communicating about the COVID dangers the more people will not trust politicians, doctors, etc.
After all if someone was incorrect about any claim then others can correct it. However, when governments engage the media to silence people then others then become very suspicious and make their decisions accordingly. The motto by politicians and others claiming “The benefits outweigh the risk” is without a shred of details, and merely made up as a expression(mantra) to push something they themselves may not understand what either the “benefits” or the “risk” are about.
Ha! Who do you think takes care of the “coincidental” illnesses after a vaccine. HIPPA prevents any Healthcare worker to share patient information. Subsequently, what they know will stay to themselves and the minimal amount of people reporting to VAERS. No wonder Healthcare workers are refusing the vaccine.
They should also refuse to GIVE it, too.
Please research the vaccines AND nutrients that may assist with maintaining health like VitaminD3 with K2 as well.
Okay, with regard to this so-called “vaccine”…I don’t know how many of my fellow human beings are aware of the fact that this is NOT a “vaccine”? In fact it is an EXPERIMENTAL Gene Therapy that has NEVER been approved for use in humans prior to the “Covid19” pandemic.
According to EXPERTS that are not politically biased, such as Dr. Judy Mikovitz (who worked with Dr. Fauci years ago during the HIV/AIDS epidemic) they tested the effectiveness of the MRNA “vaccine” (gene therapy) on Ferrets against the SARS COV2 epidemic. They injected the MRNA “Vaccine” into the ferrets and then released them to into the wild to monitor the results. Not ONE of the animals survived after they were infected with the SARS COV2 Virus in their natural environment. That is a documented fact. Also, an emergency room physician/lawyer named Dr. Simone Gold has been fired from her job as an E.R. Dr. for providing her patients with preventive (inexpensive and very effective)therapies such as hydroxychloriguine, zinc, vitamin d, remdesivir etc. She has been effectively silenced and banned on youtube for sharing with us what actually works. You can find both Dr.s on Bitchute. They offer a different point of view, which still leaves it up to you to make an informed decision about the vaccine.
On that note, I would suggest that EVERYONE who reads this comment, PLEASE look up “Event 201”. This “Event” took place in October of 2019 and was a “simulation” of a worldwide pandemic and what would take place if that ever happened. It was put on by none other than the “Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation”, “Bloomberg’s Johns Hopkins School of Medicine” and more of the “usual” Global billionaire foundations who are raking in tons of money thanks to this “unexpected” pandemic.
You will be stunned by the overwhelming “coincidences” throughout the “simulation”. Definitely an eye-opener! God Bless you all, stay healthy and saty informed!
Thank you Ziggy for writing this. I wonder if all the dupes who get this covid whatever it is, ‘vaccine’ with no virus in it will end up being sickened by whatever they plan to release in the future. I wonder if it has to do with the thousands of 5 and 6 G satellites they’ve been putting in orbit, that and all the 5G towers they’ve been putting up, and the microtransmitters they’re putting on telephone poles.
Amazon is also raking in the money, while the smaller businesses have been going under. Like John D. Rockefeller said, “Competition is a sin”.