Why is vaccine uptake so low for care workers?

[Hamilbamil]

1/6th of workers haven't had it despite it being available and being urged to for months! We're at just under 80% take up for the country at large with most under 30s either still waiting or not even able to book yet for the youngest groups. It seems likely that we'll get to 90% without breaking much of a sweat!

I'm puzzled by this apparent correlation between being a care home worker and being anti-vacs. It seems totally bizarre, but there must be a reason.

Perhaps they’re referring to their short term ability to conceive rather than their long term fertility? And yes, if your periods are all over the place, that’s going to make it more difficult to conceive.

No I've been a regular 28 days for 30 years. Never varied. I had a 15 day cycle after the jab, coming on a week after the vaccine. It must have had some effect is all I'm saying. Insisting it doesn't isn't helpful, it just makes it look like you want to convince me that something isn't true when it clearly is.

I'm perfectly prepared to accept there's no lasting effect and I had the vaccine without giving it a second thought, but I understand why people for whom it is important might be wary. I don't think calling them stupid is helpful.

Also, this preprint may be of interest. Menstrual changes have been linked to many aspects of the pandemic, not just vaccination

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, discussions on social media and blogs have indicated that women have experienced menstrual changes, including altered menstrual duration, frequency, regularity, and volume (heavier bleeding and clotting), increased dysmenorrhea, and worsened premenstrual syndrome. There have been a small number of scientific studies of variable quality reporting on menstrual cycle features during the pandemic, but it is still unclear whether apparent changes are due to COVID-19 infection/illness itself, or other pandemic-related factors like increased psychological stress and changes in health behaviours. It is also unclear to what degree current findings are explained by reporting bias, recall bias, selection bias and confounding factors.Further research is urgently needed.

osf.io/fxygt/

@AutoGroup it hasn’t affected your fertility it has affected your period for one cycle. Again nothing to do with fertility! And I haven’t called anyone stupid I’ve said there is a lack of knowledge which leads to vaccine hesitancy and a lack of knowledge about fertility.

OK so it affected my ability to conceive, not my fertility. Whilst I appreciate that's different scientifically, I think it means the same thing to most people and you can't get away from the fact that messed up cycles affect your ability to conceive.

Which profession/job will be next for MN to have a go at.

@vodkaredbullgirl

Which profession/job will be next for MN to have a go at.

I haven't seen any comments that are people having "a go at" carers on this thread?

The OP just posed the question of why vaccine uptake is lower in this group compared to the gen pop

@AutoGroup

OK so it affected my ability to conceive, not my fertility. Whilst I appreciate that's different scientifically, I think it means the same thing to most people and you can't get away from the fact that messed up cycles affect your ability to conceive.

Again illustrating them making a decision based a lack of understanding of fertility and the vaccine l. And it’s quite clear women are not getting the vaccine as they are worried about their fertility not worried that one cycle will be off or if they are that is also showing a lack of knowledge given there is only a 20% chance of conceiving in a given month regardless. I think you are being very disingenuous here.

you've had both jabs so no-one is debating your critical thinking skills. we are talking about those who turn it down

Ah so critical thinking is defined as agreeing to have the jab. Everyone who has a different opinion is incapable of critical thinking.

Gotcha. Thanks for clearing that one up.

Why should carers be forced to take a vaccine that might disrupt their menstrual cycles and therefore their ability to conceive though? If a women is trying to conceive this is a legitimate concern.

As someone who had secondary amenorrhoea for three years, for which the medical profession had bugger all explanation, and whose periods then returned spontaneously for no apparent reason in terms of health, wealth, stress or any other cause known to the medical profession, I would respectfully submit that science itself fails at this point in time to fully understand fertility, the menstrual cycle, and what may or may not cause it to be sub par and for how long. We don’t even have a proper explanation for plummeting male fertility levels.

Ok and I think it's disengenous to insist there's no effect at all or that people are unreasonable to have some worries.

@WombatChocolate

I’m finding the inability of a number of posters on this thread to see nuance in the issues and arguments, exactly support the point about limits to critical thinking.

No-one has said EVERY worker in social care is of low education or that any INDIVIDUAL on this thread is of low education, or low level critical thinking skills or low literacy or superstitious or subject to mis-trust in authority or any of the other reasons why people are hesitant to be vaccinated.

People have pointed out that these are COMMON atttributes amongst those working in many areas of social care. The recognition of these attributes is not an insult to any individual care worker on this thread or in society nor to care workers as a wider group. Information can apply to large proportions of a group and simply be factual. It can apply to large proportions of the group without applying to all. Some workers in social care will also be highly educated and have extremely high levels of literacy or critical thinking too. ALL of these things can be true at once and the fact people can’t see the nuance in the situation or in what is being said, suggests an ability to only see things in very simplistic black and white terms and not to be able to read what is actually being said.

Social care workers who do the bulk of the day to day caring for adults are OFTEN (note I don’t say always) low paid and have low levels of formal education. The jobs have poor conditions and low pay and therefore don’t tend to attract large numbers of people who could work in easier, more pleasant environments and earn more. It is simple Demand and Supply in the labour market. These workers are the bedrock of the system and without them, lots of adults wouldn’t receive the care they need....they deserve appreciation and recognition for what they do, but this does not change the reality that they are also likely to be less formally educated and this is correlated with low vaccine take-up.

So people need to think a bit more before responding huffily and saying people are saying care workers are expendable or considered stupid. This is a thread about why people don’t take up the offer of a vaccine. The characteristics of MOST (again not all) not all care workers explain this. They are simply realities and not insults.

Lack of trust in authority, reliance on non-official sources of information are related to disadvantage in the last and currently. Certain groups are more likely to be disadvantaged than others. It is disadvantage that leads to attitudes which might turn down the jab. And again, not all those in care work are against the jab, nor mistrustful of authority or reliant on non-official sources of information, nor of limited formal education, nor from disadvantaged groups. However, significant proportions are.

@WombatChocolate - I’m finding your inability to see that not everyone on this thread who is commenting on low education and critical thinking skills is actually being particularly nuanced in their thinking illustrates quite nicely your own failure of critical thinking. You only appear to see nuance where you want to. No-one has said EVERYONE talking about education and critical thinking skills on this thread is denigrating an entire profession, even when they are giving their overall negative impression of often extremely thoughtlessly worded posts. However, if you fail to see the connections between society’s general expectations and assumptions about care workers as a group, the way they are generally referred to and treated, and any resulting self-fulfilling prophecies, then you lack critical thinking skills yourself.

@Walkaround

As someone who had secondary amenorrhoea for three years, for which the medical profession had bugger all explanation, and whose periods then returned spontaneously for no apparent reason in terms of health, wealth, stress or any other cause known to the medical profession, I would respectfully submit that science itself fails at this point in time to fully understand fertility, the menstrual cycle, and what may or may not cause it to be sub par and for how long. We don’t even have a proper explanation for plummeting male fertility levels.

Or, I should say, plummeting male sperm counts, as we don’t fully understand the impact that has on fertility, what with fertility not being fully understood…

I'd have thought it was obvious why some carers and healthcare staff don't want this jab.

I'm a carer and I won't be having it because I've seen the extremely negative effects it has had on some residents.

I've also seen that there is no medical help for these side effects ,only denial. These side effects are not being reported because they are a "coincidence" which makes the reporting system not fit for purpose.

@Nerdygirl

Because they don’t want to be coerced into something that is still in emergency measures in order to do their minimal pay iob. Especially because it doesn’t stop you transmitting or getting covid and the number of adverse reactions if you look it up is higher than any other injection. There ha no long term data and that is fact so no one can say we know there will be no issues in the future

But say they are thick, , it’s to do with their ethinicity are not critical thinkers if that makes you feel superior

Um, vaccinations don’t have long term side effects. If an adverse reaction is going to happen then it will do quite quickly.

What do you mean by emergency measures?

Can you provide a citation that states the “number of adverse reactions is higher than any other injection?” What do you mean by “other injections?”

I've also seen that there is no medical help for these side effects ,only denial. These side effects are not being reported because they are a "coincidence" which makes the reporting system not fit for purpose

This is the most sensible post on this thread.
I was very happy to have the first vaccine. I had side effects and which I was told were probably but not officially related to the vaccine. The most worrying part was ED told me they didn’t know what to test for as it was so new and therefore they could only hope my symptoms didn’t get worse. Not the reassurance hoped for and when something goes wrong, you quickly realise you are on your own and nobody wants to know.
I’m a healthcare worker.

Hesitancy in health and social care staff, I've spoken with a few and these are the main reasons.

Suspicion and lack of trust of the government. For example black people were injected with
Syphilis, the Tuskegee Study.

There is a misconception here that health care assistants are generally uneducated, this is infact untrue. Many are graduates looking for part-time/flexible working patterns. African immigrants are often also often highly educated.

A general mistrust in pharmaceutical companies, due to testing within their native countries or close. Which have lead to bad effects, take Pfizer for example and Nigeria, with the meningitis drug trial.

The fact they regularly see patients vaccinated against the flu, who still die of the flu.

The simple fact the vaccine is still within its trials phases and nobody knows the long term outcome... nurses and hcas speak and they tell each other of the bad outcomes of the vaccine... as they see it with their own eyes, the impact is different to statistics on BBC news.

There are plenty of people in the general population, who also do not want to be vaccinated. H&SC staff have their own minds also and will express their own freedom of choice.

The fact mortality is extremely low for under 40s and therefore would rather not compromise their future health.

I understand people will argue, well they are there to protect the patients/residents. Well most argue they are free to be vaccinated, why do I need to be also...

There are other issues that nobody seems to want to talk about.

Many of these care home residents are being injected without their consent or understanding. Many have dementia and are frightened and confused. What's been happening at my home is that the nurse has turned up and announced to confused upset residents that she is here to give them their injection, and proceeded to do so.

Those that have been hesitant have been bullied and coerced. They are not told what it's for, or that there could be side effects. This is completely utterly wrong and of course visitors have not been allowed so there is no family to intervene.

I have seen with my own eyes that many of these residents have quickly developed pneumonia and died. No questions are asked and no post mortem takes place. And no one bats an eye because of course, because people in their 80s are expected to die.

I won't be having it and will leave if it comes to it.

It does bug me that if anyone refuses the the vaccine for whatever reason then they are an idiot, selfish, etc unless they are an ethnic minority of course. Then it’s understandable!!!

Some people I work with have needed a week off sick after their vaccine. If you work in care that's likely unpaid. That's a fairly compelling reason in itself for low paid workers not to have it.

Since having the vaccine, my periods have changed. Definitely changed over the course of the pandemic.

However, this is because I’m 15 months older and closer to menopause. You can look for a link with the vaccine, but it’s much more likely to be something else isn’t it

How is a change to periods not a change to fertility?

jamiefraser horribly sinister and dint care home deaths increase in January?

@Roonerspismed

How is a change to periods not a change to fertility?

because changes to your menstrual cycle do not equal changes in fertility

the menstrual cycle is very easily influenced by environmental and other physiological factors. An episode of menorrhagia, for example, does not impact your ability to conceive