Less than half Kentucky long-term care staff vaccinated - WVLT

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LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Less than half of staff members at Kentucky long-term care facilities have been vaccinated for COVID-19, in part because many refused vaccination, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Now some of those people are changing their minds, leading to complications in the vaccine distribution.

Doses first became available for long-term care facility staff and residents two months ago. Since then an estimated 73% of residents have received the vaccine, but only about 45% of staff have been vaccinated.

“It was what I would call a soft, not a hard, no,” Gov. Andy Beshear said last week. “It wasn’t that they didn’t want to take it, it’s that they felt that maybe it had been rushed, they had concerns about its efficacy, and as they saw other people getting it, they now want it.”

But CVS Health and Walgreens were contracted by the federal government to provide only three vaccine clinics at long-term care facilities. The third, which is happening now, was meant as a wrap up to offer second doses to any stragglers. Both pharmacies initially refused to dole out first doses at their final clinic, in part because they don’t have a contract to come back and administer the second dose, said Betsy Johnson, an industry lobbyist and director of the Kentucky Association for Health Care Facilities and the Kentucky Center for Assisted Living.

After meeting with the Cabinet for Health and Family Services this week, CVS and Walgreens have now been instructed to provide a first dose to staff members and residents as long as the facility has a plan for how those people will get a second dose — a responsibility that will likely fall to the local health department, Johnson said.

Johnson couldn’t say how many staff members were now requesting an initial dose, weeks after they were first offered one, but she said “it’s enough to be a concern.”

Vaccinating residents and staff at long-term care facilities is among the highest priority for public health experts. In Kentucky, they account for more than 55 percent of the state’s nearly 4,000 COVID-19 deaths.

Trying to convince staff to be immunized “is a day-to-day struggle with day-to-day goal setting,” she said, noting that distrust of government and misinformation are hampering their efforts.

As of February 1, a total of 68,254 doses of the vaccine had been administered in Kentucky nursing homes, 26,321 of which went to staff. At least 8,412 staff members had received both doses of the vaccine.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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