Whatcom doctor says those choosing not to get vaccinated ‘playing with fire’
Many of Whatcom County’s front-line workers are getting vaccinated at higher rates than the general population as part of their effort to end the new coronavirus pandemic, according to information provided to The Bellingham Herald by public- and private-sector officials.
Firefighters, grocery workers, hospital staff, law-enforcement officers and public-school employees all are rolling up their sleeves, officials from those organizations told The Herald.
“We’re vaccinated so that we protect the people we encounter on the job,” said Chief Bill Hewett of the Bellingham Fire Department.
At St. Joseph hospital in Bellingham, critical-care Dr. Gur Raj Deol said “you’re playing with fire” if you are able to get one of the three vaccines and don’t.
“It’s not about your philosophy or your religion,” Deol told The Herald. “It’s life and death.”
Almost 58% of Whatcom County residents who are eligible for vaccination (those 16 and older) have begun the process and nearly 45% of the eligible population is fully vaccinated, according to the state Department of Health’s COVID-19 dashboard.
But the holy grail of herd immunity requires a vaccination rate of 70% to 80%, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
So-called “essential workers” in schools, emergency services, medical professions and grocery stores are getting vaccinated at nearly that 70% to 80% rate.
Public demand falling
Local demand for COVID-19 vaccinations is dropping just as the virus is surging and St. Joseph hospital is filling with younger, sicker COVID-related patients, health officials said last week.
“They’re working people, with little kids. It’s something we have not seen before,” Deol told The Herald. “None of the patients have been vaccinated. None.”
Deol and an ICU nurse were the first people vaccinated at the hospital, where nearly 80% of the staff is fully vaccinated now, said St. Joseph spokeswoman Bev Mayhew.
“(Vaccination) is strongly encouraged but it’s up to our employees to decide,” Mayhew told The Herald.
Whatcom County Executive Satpal Sidhu told The Herald that getting vaccinated is “a good way to have more freedom.”
Vaccine not required
None of Whatcom County’s largest employers are requiring vaccinations, but Western Washington University will want proof of COVID-19 vaccination from students, faculty and staff in the fall.
But that may change if the vaccine gets full approval, rather than its current “emergency use” designation from the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Hewett said that 90% or more of his staff — firefighters, dispatchers and office personnel — received a vaccine.
“It’s important for us to move past the pandemic,” he said.
Washington State Nurses Association spokeswoman Ruth Schubert said the group encourages all its members — and the public — get vaccinated.
“The vast majority of our nurses are vaccinated,” Schubert told The Herald.
Accurate numbers regarding the percentage of workers in some professions was difficult to determine because of medical privacy laws, however.
High vaccination rates
Vaccination rates of firefighters and hospital staff are more certain because those front-line medical workers got access to special employer-organized clinics in December 2020 and January 2021 when supply was limited.
Law-enforcement officers are getting vaccinated at a significant rate, however, according to officials from Bellingham Police, the Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office and the Whatcom County Jail.
“Our vaccination clinics were done differently than the fire department,” Police Lt. Claudia Murphy told The Herald in an email.
“What I can tell you is when we were advised where and when we could get vaccines, a significant portion of our employees took the opportunity to be vaccinated,” Murphy said.
Undersheriff Doug Chadwick told The Herald in an email that about 65% of Sheriff’s Office personnel wanted the vaccine, based on a survey the department conducted.
“As an organization that has daily contact with the public, we wanted to ensure that all employees had the opportunity to receive a COVID-19 vaccine,” Chadwick said.
“This was prior to the COVID-19 outbreak that we had at the Work Center, which may have resulted in additional personnel being vaccinated,” he said.
Similarly, a “significant number” of corrections officers at the Whatcom County Jail are vaccinated, said Chief Corrections Deputy Wendy Jones.
“We did arrange for folks to get vaccinated,” Jones told The Herald. “We’ve continued to encourage that. This can be a high-risk environment.”
Vaccine shots were offered to inmates through the Lummi Nation, she said.
Schools, grocery workers
Many grocery store workers, who just received a $4 per hour “hazard pay” boost from the Bellingham City Council, are seeking the vaccine too, said Marc Auerbach, education director of the United Food and Commercial Workers 21.
“The number of workers who said they were planning not to get vaccinated was very low (around 15%),” Auerbach told The Herald in an email. “We believe that number has dropped over time as people see coworkers, friends, and family get safely immunized.”
UFCW 21, which represents 1,200 grocery workers in Whatcom County, has an outreach team to help its members get vaccinated.
“We have found that the biggest barrier to vaccination currently is not resistance to being immunized but instead is simple logistics and scheduling. Most essential workers face all sorts of barriers from unpredictable schedules to transportation and child-care issues,” Auerbach said.
“When vaccines are offered free at worksites and workers are given time and space to be vaccinated, the participation rate is extremely high,” he said.
“Many (of our members) have spent a year or more avoiding family and friends out of worry of infecting their loved ones. Our members have been very clear that they want to be able to work safely and to be able to connect with their family and community without fear of getting others sick, and getting vaccinated is a huge part of that,” he said.
At Bellingham Public Schools, spokeswoman Dana Smith told The Herald that “most people are very excited” to be immunized against COVID-19.
“We aren’t maintaining a record of who has been immunized for COVID-19, as it is confidential health information. However, in April, we estimated 1,650 of our employees and community partners have been immunized, based on clinic data and information that some employees chose to share with us,” Smith said in an email.
Community partners include child-care workers at places such as the YMCA, Smith said. The district has about 1,700 employees, according to its website.
“We really want to be part of encouraging immunity for those who can get the vaccine,” Smith told The Herald. “We see it as our role to help inform our community.”
At the Ferndale School District, a large portion of the 600-person workforce took advantage of vaccination clinics in February, spokeswoman Kelly Warner told The Herald.
That includes more than 370 school employees who received immunization shots offered by Lummi Tribal Health, she said.
