Some health care workers are struggling to get coronavirus vaccines, but hospital chiefs told CNBC on Thursday that they expect comments to shift after a greater percentage of workers receive the vaccine.
“I think soon everyone will want to take it,” Will Ferniany, UAB ‘s Head of Health System in Alabama, told “Squawk on the Street.” “About 60% want to take it and they want to find out as soon as they can take it,” he said, referring to a staff survey. “Twenty per cent want to take it. but they are cautious, and 20% are very skeptical about taking it. “
UAB Hospital was set to begin offering shots to health care workers Thursday after receiving 10,725 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine earlier in the week. The first U.S. vaccine outside of clinical trials was held Monday, just days after the Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use license.
Ferniany said the reluctance among some workers to take the vaccine was not surprising. “But I believe that as they see what happens to their friends and how this spreads – and the vaccination has been going very smoothly in Alabama – I think think most people “want to get the sights,” he said.
The multi-hospital system, based in Birmingham, Alabama, cannot make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory because the vaccine has received regulatory approval only on an emergency basis, Ferniany said. He said staff, however, needed to be vaccinated against the flu. Last year about 52% of Americans who were at least six months old received the flu vaccine.
“But we’ve given our staff a lot of information, FAQs, Zoom forums for everyone. I believe as they get educated, they take it,” Ferniany said of the Covid vaccine.
Dr. Marc Boom, Head of Houston Methodist in Texas, told CNBC that more than 11,000 of his employees have signed up to receive the vaccine. “We have a large percentage of our population running towards this,” he said, adding that it is a comfort to health care workers who have experienced the devastation of pandemic disease. spread nearby. “There was so much relief and so much hope with the vaccine arriving,” he told “Squawk on the Street.”
However, Boom said, “the eight – hospital system, which is also part of the sprawling Texas Medical Center, has a whole other group that takes a wait – and – see view.”
Like Ferniany, Boom said more education and other staff experience should help more staff feel comfortable getting the new vaccine. “We’ve had the flu vaccine for over 15 years and we always get a full vaccine with that. We’ll finally get there with this” even if it takes a while, Boom said.
The release of the Covid vaccine this week comes at a critical time in U.S. coronary heart disease epilepsy. The nation’s seven-day average of new diseases peaks at 215,729, according to a CNBC study of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Daily deaths are also at a rate of 2,570, based on a seven-day average.
In Texas, where hospitals have been stable over the past week, Boom said more rural parts of the state are being hit harder now compared to the increase seen earlier last year. summer.
Hospitals for Covid patients in Alabama are at the highest level, according to the COVID Administration Project, which is run by journalists at the Atlantic. While Ferniany praised the state governor, Republican Kay Ivey, for extending his mask mandate, he said coronavirus cases are rising “fast.” “Some of our rural hospitals are we manage, nearly 50% of their hospital is now Covid patients, ”Ferniany said.