Concern for BAME health staff not taking up the vaccine

[Baileysforchristmas]

This is going to be an issue:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-56069325

Most of the people I know who are refusing the vaccine are Eastern European working in the care sector. Not much finger pointing happening there, wonder why?

There are many legitimate reasons for vaccine hesitancy, is it only white people that are allowed to have them now?

I'm mixed race and there was a significant lack of testing among ethnic minorities when they were developing the vaccine. There were not enough racial minorities included in clinical trials.

Also, considering the goverment has quietly set money aside for the Vaccine Damage Payment (adding the covid jab to the list) and given Pfizer a legal indemnity to stop them being sued for any ill results of people having the vaccine. I don't feel like it's worth the risk. If it was a cure or prevented people getting the illness in the first place, then I'd maybe reconsider. But I won't be having the vaccine.
That doesn't mean I don't deserve to be in my job. I'm already disabled. I'm not doing anything to risk making it worse.

NHS doctors in England have the lowest uptake rate at 57%. Ask yourself why that might be? And for the record, I'm not anti-vax at all. I'd have any other vaccine (and have done up till now including mmr, hpv etc.).

Read this article from the Guardian. All anyone wants to do is blame the minorities, the young and the poor.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/vaccine-rollout-caution-some-health-workers-england

@EffIt

The media have never given AF about 'BAME' people, now they're making them scapegoats.

Scapegoats for what?

@Hmmph

I can see this leading to more racism - “I don’t want to be treated by him as he’s BAME so won’t be vaccinated”

Yep I can see this happening too ☹

@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

We are being made scapegoats due to the lower numbers of vaccine uptake, perpetuating the myth that Covid then remains an issue because of black and brown people and other ethinic minorities.

@Rasclut

Yes. Look at the government's response to covid. All they have done is blame ethnic minorities from the ridiculous claim that it came from eating a bat to the claim that it effects you worse if you have brown skin. Then they claimed that bame weren't social distancing. Articles in the news about bame breaches all the time. Then claims that areas with high bame needed local lockdowns. Now claiming bame dont want the vaccine and more needs to be done. What do you call this if not stirring up racial hatred?

Ok lets just leave it then. Not address the problem because that would be racist. We need to let black and Asian people die rather than tell them they have a higher percentage of deaths per capita. Whether that be from living conditions, job exposure or genetic illnesses. After all we shouldn't be seen to expose the views of white privilege on people. Even when they are scientific fact or plain common sense.

[quote Jurassicperk]@Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum

We are being made scapegoats due to the lower numbers of vaccine uptake, perpetuating the myth that Covid then remains an issue because of black and brown people and other ethinic minorities.[/quote]
Yes I understand that morons will use the headlines to be racist

However I don't understand why publicly saying look folks we have a problem here that needs addressing is scapegoating. Surely we would be more applaud if they said nothing.

I think the main problem is they didn't take action soon enough. Yes they were talking about it for weeks. However it seemed to be a lets wait and see if the surveys were right. Rather than make a plan and implement it.

‘NHS doctors in England have the lowest uptake rate at 57%. ‘

The 57% figure isn’t for the whole of England, it’s Leicester, and the article mentions it’s the only area of the workforce at the trust where minority ethnic individuals are the majority.

I agree lots of white European people not wanting the jab. You only have to look at the predictions for take up in some countries to understand that.

Amongst my Muslim friends that were originally very anti this jab. People have started to change their mind. I think the possibility of vaccine passports will swing it too. A lot like to travel to see family abroad several times a year.

Hopefully once the vaccinations get rolled out more. Peoples views will change towards having them. Short term rather addressing the up take in health care professionals is important though. If that is weighted towards a specific group of people. Then ignoring the problem would be wrong.

Vaccine passports will certainly sway people (in my own ethnic group) towards getting it.

But this isn’t confined to BAME people. Vaccine scepticism is highly widespread in places like France.

[quote Jurassicperk]I'm mixed race and there was a significant lack of testing among ethnic minorities when they were developing the vaccine. There were not enough racial minorities included in clinical trials.

Also, considering the goverment has quietly set money aside for the Vaccine Damage Payment (adding the covid jab to the list) and given Pfizer a legal indemnity to stop them being sued for any ill results of people having the vaccine. I don't feel like it's worth the risk. If it was a cure or prevented people getting the illness in the first place, then I'd maybe reconsider. But I won't be having the vaccine.
That doesn't mean I don't deserve to be in my job. I'm already disabled. I'm not doing anything to risk making it worse.

NHS doctors in England have the lowest uptake rate at 57%. Ask yourself why that might be? And for the record, I'm not anti-vax at all. I'd have any other vaccine (and have done up till now including mmr, hpv etc.).

Read this article from the Guardian. All anyone wants to do is blame the minorities, the young and the poor.

www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/14/vaccine-rollout-caution-some-health-workers-england[/quote]
I’d suspect one of the reasons it’s lower in clinical staff than in admin staff is that you can’t be vaccinated within 28 days of having covid!

@BungleandGeorge
Of course, there will be lots of reasons why people aren't having it, completely individual to them so I couldn't assume to know. I'm just sharing my reasons why I'm sceptic, as a member of the community that people are here talking about.

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel
My mistake, that was a typo. Should have said "in a Trust in England". Your point about ethnic minority individuals being a majority in the workforce was exactly what I was on about. There are clear barriers to getting this vaccine for many people. Whatever they are, they're affecting ethnic minorities, the young and the poor. No one is asking how we remove these barriers, it's just gone straight to blame for impacting the vaccine rollout. We need to reframe the discussion.

All they have done is blame ethnic minorities from the ridiculous claim that it came from eating a bat
The claim that it may have been a zoonotic transfer from a bat is not ridiculous; bats are common sources of zoonotic diseases and bats are eaten in China. And "eating a bat" does not constitute an ethnic minority, so I'm not sure why this is relevant. The Han Chinese are not an ethnic minority in China.

to the claim that it effects you worse if you have brown skin.
No. There have been suggestions that it may be worse if you are Vitamin D deficient, which is commoner if you are dark skinned and live in a temperate climate. These suggestions have come from the medical profession, not "the government," and believe it or not, they are actually trying to be helpful and help people to not get sick.

Then they claimed that bame weren't social distancing. Articles in the news about bame breaches all the time.
That's the media not the government. This is not Iran or China, so we don't have state-controlled media here.

Then claims that areas with high bame needed local lockdowns.
No. They imposed stricter local restrictions on some areas that had higher r rates. Some of those (but not all) happened to be areas with more BAME than average. But many were not.

Now claiming bame dont want the vaccine and more needs to be done.
No, they said that refusal was higher among BAME, which is true. They expressed concern about this. What do you want them to do? They are trying to save BAME people's lives.

@Jurassicperk

You did specifically ask
NHS doctors in England have the lowest uptake rate at 57%. Ask yourself why that might be?

It’s fact rather than presumption that you can’t have a covid vaccine within 28 days of a positive (possibly longer if you have a protracted illness) so groups with higher exposure would be expected to have lower uptake; possibly including occupation, age, race, geography (Leicester has high rates).
I agree nobody should be making presumptions based on personal bias, whatever that bias is.

I don’t understand your point JurassicPerk. You seem to be saying ‘ask yourself why that might be but then ignore one of the main correlations’. Surely if we want to find solutions that needs to be a starting point rather than the whole story but making it unmentionable won’t help.

If you have geographical pockets with large numbers of unvaccinated people (which can easily happen if vaccine refusal correlates with things like ethnicity, religion, class or other things that tend to cluster together) you are going to see localized outbreaks in those areas

We've already seen disproprtionate infections in some areas driven by a complex mix of factors, but some focus may have been lost because of the huge numbers overall - plus, as we've seen on here, the fact that some simply don't want it discussed at all

As vaccinations numbers climb, though, I worry about the consequences of some being more visibly out of step, especially given the narrative of "we need to be jabbed to protect others too"

@Kokeshi123 whitesplaining. Telling people that they are stupid and wrong isnt making this vaccine seem more attractive is it?!

Here's what we should do, then: if it becomes apparent that there are differences in vaccine uptakes levels between different ethnicities, we should do NOTHING. Not say anything, not attempt any outreach, not discuss it in the media. Nothing.

That way, we can make sure that Rasclut has something to complain about from around 2022 when COVID-19 outbreaks start to happen disproportionately among black and Asian Britons. "The government KNEW that the vaccine was lower among black and Asian people! Why didn't the government SAY something? Or attempt some kind of outreach? Or at least DISCUSS the issue! It's so obvious that they want BAME people to die or at least don't give a shit!" etc. etc.

The. Government. Literally. Cannot. Win. On. This.

And by the way, if you want to impress me in a debate, you need to use actual arguments, not just meaningless words like "whitesplaining." You haven't countered any of the points I made in my posts. And you are the only one who has used the word "stupid."

@ThornAmongstRoses natural infection won’t result in an immune response as robust as the vaccine will, and it might not last as long either.

@ThornAmongstRoses their level of immunity, that is

Interestingly, this just came up on my newsfeed: www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56086965

I get the thing about alterations for vaccine priority, but it's the "extra people to shield" that surprised me at this stage. I wonder how much is to do with vaccine resistance and what minority communities' views on it might be?

@Hmmph

I can see this leading to more racism - “I don’t want to be treated by him as he’s BAME so won’t be vaccinated”

Well good luck to the people who do that....seeing as a significant number of HCPs are 'BAME'

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel

My point was that some educated professionals are choosing not to have the vaccine, for whatever reason. There will be some that can't due to recently having Covid. But others will be declining it. One point I made was the inadequate numbers of ethnic minority participants in clinical trials. We don't fully understand how this vaccine will affect people. I'm only sharing why I'd decline it as a person who belongs to an ethnic minority group. I'm certainly not trying to put others off getting it. I'm also not claiming to be an expert on these things. I've based my decision on personal reading and discussions with a scientist friend whose lab has been involved in the Covid response.

@Circumlocutious

Vaccine passports will certainly sway people (in my own ethnic group) towards getting it.

But this isn’t confined to BAME people. Vaccine scepticism is highly widespread in places like France.

I agree