Local reaction mixed to COVID-19 vaccination

Will you take a COVID-19 inoculation when it becomes available in Southeast Missouri?

Some say "yes," others "no," while it seems a smaller group is undecided.

No unanimity of opinion

A Gallup poll released Dec. 8 found 63% of those surveyed plan to accept a vaccine dose.

The poll was conducted Nov. 16 to 29 after the announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech that their joint coronavirus vaccine had proved more than 90% effective in Phase 3 clinical trials.

When Gallup did a survey Sept. 14 to 27, only 50% indicated a willingness to take the vaccine.

A Southeast Missourian unscientific Sept. 4 poll of 493 respondents, conducted online, revealed the following results about the willingness to receive:

• 42.0% yes (207 votes)
• 42.6% no (210 votes)
• 15.4% undecided (76 votes)

Local vaccine planning

Area health care workers and those in long-term care facilities have priority and the first injection of a two-shot regimen was administered Wednesday to nurses and doctors at SoutheastHEALTH in Cape Girardeau.

Mark Winkler, Cape Girardeau County's director of emergency management, told the County Commission last week SoutheastHEALTH will be a regional reception site for the vaccine.

The hospital in Cape Girardeau expects 1,000 doses to be administered no later than Thursday to front-line medical staff.

Cape Girardeau's Lutheran Home, the largest skilled care facility in the county, expects to receive enough of the vaccine developed by Moderna by Dec. 28 to begin the first vaccine injections to its 270 residents in skilled care and assisted living.

Nearly 400 staff of the facility will also receive the vaccine.

Pfizer-BioNTech received emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration for its vaccine Friday and Moderna is expected to be green-lighted by the end of the week.

Joy Mart of Cape Girardeau says she will accept the COVID-19 vaccine.Jeff Long

• Yes: Joy Mart, 23, Cape Girardeau

Joy is an environmental science major at Southeast Missouri State University.

She will accept the vaccine as soon as it becomes available.

"My parents were anti-vaxxers, but at age 21, I decided to start getting them," Mart said.

"At college, I started learning about diseases and I was also influenced by an elder sister who got vaccinated," she added.

Susan Spooler of Cape Girardeau says she will not take the COVID-19 vaccine for at least six months, concerned about side effects.Submitted

• No: Susan Spooler, 51, Cape Girardeau

Susan is a medical transcriptionist for Urology Associates, a survivor of ovarian cancer in 2016 and of COVID-19 this past June.

"I'll wait at least six months, maybe a year," Spooler said, "because we don't know enough about these vaccines and their side effects."

Spooler said she appreciates the sense of urgency about ending the pandemic but her personal experiences are too real and raw.

"I had a bad reaction to the chemo drug Taxol and went into anaphylactic shock," Spooler said, "and it nearly killed me."

Vaccine timeline

In a Dec. 13 interview with "Fox News Sunday," Moncef Slaoui, head of the federal vaccine initiative Operation Warp Speed, said 14 million vaccine doses will have been distributed nationally by the end of the year with 100 million injections forecast by the end of February.

Fauci's warning

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the renowned infectious disease expert and White House adviser on the coronavirus pandemic, told the New York Times this month he is hopeful at least 80% of the nation will be vaccinated in order to stop the virus.

"If you have a highly efficacious vaccine and only 50% of the country gets (it), you're not going to have the umbrella of protection of herd immunity," Fauci told the Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit on Dec. 8.