Hesitancy about vaccines may keep Utah from reaching herd immunity - Deseret News

The most common barriers to vaccination cited by Utahns in the state health department survey were concern over side effects, cost and how quickly the vaccines were developed, along general opposition to vaccinations and the beliefs that COVID-19 is not a serious problem or a risk to their community,.

Just 26.4% of Utahns 16-29 years old are fully vaccinated, compared to just under 55% of those 50-59.

The federal government just approved the Pfizer vaccine, already able to be given to 16- and 17-year olds, for use by adolescents as young as 12.

Lakin said the state is combating hesitancy by making it easier to get a shot.

“We’re trying to work on getting the vaccines to the people instead of the people going to the vaccines,” he said.

But there are a lot of people who are rightly curious and trying to get good information,” he said, promising they’ll soon be hearing about the vaccine from more “trusted voices from different communities.”.

But while more than 38% of white Utahns are fully vaccinated, the numbers are lower across the board for minority residents — just over 22% of Hispanics and Latinos are also fully vaccinated; slightly over 15% of Blacks; nearly 16% of Pacific Islanders; nearly 29% of Asians; and nearly 19% of Native Americans.

Caroline Moreno, equitable access manager for the Salt Lake County Health Department, said demand for COVID-19 vaccines has been declining in Utah and the rest of the nation for the past few weeks.

And now, we can barely get 50-60 people in over the same time period and in similar locations,” Moreno said.

And immigrants who don’t have the proper documentation to be in the country legally can be suspicious that the shots could reveal their status, something that’s not supposed to happen, although Moreno said there are stories about vaccine providers requesting Social Security numbers.

Those partners understand why some in their community might be reluctant to be vaccinated and can use their connection to change minds, Moreno said.

“Trust is a really, really essential piece of this whole puzzle,” Moreno said, and there’s going to be “higher levels of trust with people from their own community and not us government people who are showing up with flyers.

“It was more than I could take,” said Cathy Wolfsfeld, a church member who used her skills as a community health worker to organize the clinic that so far has served about 900 people, including many whites, although “with the minority population being as vulnerable as we are, that was my focus.”.

Wolfsfeld said she’s seen less hesitancy to get the vaccine than she expected, but some still need convincing.

I tell them, ‘Don’t listen to people that are more scared than you are.’ Because there are so many things going on out there that are just so outrageously wrong and that makes people afraid,” Wolfsfeld said

Emily Spivak, a University of Utah Health infectious diseases physician, vaccine hesitancy reflects the nation’s larger political divide

There is vaccine hesitancy on the right and the left, Spivak said

Instead, Spivak said, “you need to ask people what they think or what they know about it and not go into the conversation based on a different community because it’s probably very different place to place