||| FROM KUOW |||
There are no public opinion polls that show how many people on Orcas Island plan to get a Covid-19 vaccine when they finally get the chance.
But the public schools on Orcas have exceptionally low vaccine compliance rates. A total of 93% of 6th grade students were out of compliance during the 2018-2019 school year, which means as far as the school knows, very few kids were fully vaccinated.
The low compliance rates are a concern for Ellen Wilcox who is in charge of rolling out the Covid-19 vaccines for San Juan County’s health department. But she doesn’t think people here are as resistant to vaccines as the school data suggests.
That’s the case outside of Ray’s Pharmacy in Eastsound, where most people said they can’t wait to get the Covid-19 vaccine, which offers the hope of a return to normal life.
“I would take it without hesitation,” said Sarah McCulloch.
Others do express concerns about getting vaccinated, like Ann Garfield who admits she has “shot phobia.”
“I mean, I am glad there’s going to be a vaccine, but I will wait to see what happens,” she said.
Garfield’s “wait and see” attitude is shared by a number of people on Orcas, who told KUOW they aren’t in a hurry to get vaccinated, but may well end up getting their shots.
“We probably use the term ‘vaccine hesitancy’ too often and too broadly,” Wilcox said. A more helpful phrase in some cases might be “vaccine procrastination.”
Wilcox points to an experiment the health department did on San Juan Island, which resulted in a dramatic turnaround in one school where 38 families were not up-to-date with their vaccines.
“We really expected that most of those families would just turn in an exemption form,” she said. But in the end only two families did not vaccinate.
According to Wilcox, county health did two things differently that made the difference. First, they just made it a lot easier for people to get their kids vaccinated. In many cases it was as simple as helping arrange a convenient time for the kids to get their shots.
Second, county health answered people’s questions, which in nearly every case reflected curiosity or at most healthy skepticism about vaccines.
“We did individual phone calls for those who were wondering whether it was a safe vaccine for their child, depending on what the vaccine was,” she said.
READ FULL ARTICLE: https://www.kuow.org/stories/don-t-call-orcas-islanders-vaccine-hesitant-call-them-vaccine-procrastinators
