It seems only half of Chatham-Kent’s long term care workers have decided to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Colby says it’s a lot less than he would have hoped.
“I’m really hoping that number will go up substantially,” Dr. Colby says. “I’ve done my best to dispel any rumours that the vaccines that Health Canada has approved are unsafe or untested, because they’re very safe and very thoroughly tested.”
Case in point, some people have been concerned about reports of European countries banning the AstraZeneca drug because of blood clots developing. Dr. Colby says Public Health England, Health Canada, and the World Health Organization have all certified the blood clots were not above the base line level, in other words people who were vaccinated with the AstraZeneca drug had no greater risk of blood clots than anyone else in the general population.
Dr. Colby says any stories like this, even once they’ve been disproven, increases vaccine hesitancy.
“But I’m hoping that the long term care workers realize that the people that they’re looking after who are vaccinated are doing very, very well, and [are] healthy and happy, and they decide they are going to get it as a result of that.”
Dr. Colby says the vaccination rate among health care workers at CKHA and the community at large has been much higher. He’s hopeful Chatham-Kent will reach the point of herd immunity sometime in the spring.
