Coronavirus spreads. But don't panic! (topical thread)

[Tres Leches]

Well, I don't know. There's nebulous "they"/"them"/"American-flavored liberals" floating around, so I thought it'd be useful to nail down some specifics.

Ok. I'll bite. Your question: 
"Who doesn't have access to vaccines in America right now?"

On a July day in downtown Lowell, Mass., the first sunny Saturday of the month, people began to line up for a block party. 
The party wasn’t just a way to have a good time. The real motivation was to get people in the community vaccinated against Covid-19. 
In the minds of the public health and community organizers who staged it, it was a roaring success.

The people who got shots at the party “were not people who were resistant,” Dr. Tello told me. Outreach workers went to a nearby park and invited the homeless people there to get free food and, if they wanted, a vaccination, and many took them up on the offer in such a low-stakes, nonmedical setting.

An elderly woman who cares for two people with disabilities had tried and failed to schedule vaccinations for all three of them at the same time. This time, she succeeded. A woman who was able to vaccinate all the other eligible people in her family hadn’t been able to get it herself because she has four young children she wasn’t allowed to take to the vaccination center. That day her children played cornhole while she got the shot.


There are plenty of Americans who have been inundated with misinformation about the vaccines. Many are staunchly opposed to getting it for a variety of reasons, from personal health concerns to conspiracy theories. But that doesn’t describe everyone who is unvaccinated — not by a long shot. And there are plenty of things we can do to reach them if we’re serious about spending the time and the money.

Instead, the current approach is to argue that access has increased and it’s everyone’s individual responsibility to get a shot — and if you don’t, it’s on you. Once again, we have taken the cruelly American, ruggedly individualistic tactic of making this about personal responsibility, not about a systemic response, just as we did in combating the virus itself.


“It’s not a public health strategy for any condition to just blame somebody into treatment and prevention,” said Rhea Boyd, a pediatrician and public health advocate. Telling the unvaccinated that they’re being selfish “really runs counter to all the work it’s going to take to convince those folks to be vaccinated, to trust us that we have their best interests in mind.”

Access is far more widespread than it was at the beginning of the year. Many cities now offer multiple venues for getting it without needing an appointment. But about 10 percent of the eligible population still lives more than a 15-minute drive from a vaccine distribution location. And even if there’s a site down the road, it usually requires taking time off work — not just to get the shot but also potentially to recover from the side effects — arranging transportation and figuring out child care.

“Missing out on a few hours of work seems very easy to us, but in fact it could be the matter of having food for the family versus not,” said Ann Lee, the chief executive of the nonprofit Community Organized Relief Effort. For these people, when they’re weighing whether to get a vaccination or potentially forgo some wages, “the wages are going to win out.”
Those who are unvaccinated are also likely to work in essential jobs like agriculture and manufacturing that don’t allow them to step away from work. They work long hours and may prioritize time with their families or communities when they finally get a break.

And yet 43 percent of the unvaccinated say they definitely or probably would get it or are unsure, according to Julia Raifman, an assistant professor at the Boston University School of Public Health. People who have multiple jobs may find it impossible to schedule a shot in between all of their shifts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/06/opini...nated.html

Approaches like the above versus "just get vaccinated, fucker!"
Maybe "just get vaccinated, fucker!" feels more satisfying for a minute but it boils down to performative and unproductive and it won't get more shots in arms.

There are many workers and volunteers on the ground doing the actual work of getting shots in arms. Those are the ones who deserve our attention, not people screaming with politically-tinged rage (on either side).

-Teresa

I wonder what the proportion of people with poor access is compared to people who refuse because of misinformation.

That would be interesting to find out. Probably some overlap too.

-Teresa