Many in the Southeast are turning down Covid-19 vaccines because they are angry that former President Donald Trump lost the election and sick of Democrats in Washington thinking they know what’s best
George Grabryan, the emergency management director for Lauderdale County, Ala., and Mike Melton, the county's Covid-19 vaccination project manager, say rampant disinformation on social media has contributed the area's low vaccination rate. | Erin Banco/POLITICOSHEFFIELD, Ala. — George Grabryan and Mike Melton have been helping people here on the bank of the Tennessee River survive devastating tornadoes, floods and other disasters for decades.
Local public health officials and physicians in this part of the country are convinced that they are doing everything they can to save lives — pulling 15-hour days to set up pop-up mobile vaccine units, monitor patients on respirators, and administer rounds of therapeutics. But they can only do so much. They will not go to people’s homes to try and twist their arms, they say, and they do not want federal officials to do so either.
Only 18 people showed up. It’s been like that for weeks. At one point, Grabryan laid his head back on the van’s cushy seat, shaking it side to side. “I've been out to the funeral home for more visitations this year than I have before,” he said. “There’s no one in this area that doesn’t know someone who was affected by it.”misinformation and disinformation propagated on Facebook
“I did have a lady come down here and ask why we were pushing something that wasn’t an approved drug. I tried to tell her that this is a volunteer thing and we aren’t pushing it on anybody,” Melton said. “We’re just making it available for the ones that want it. If they want to take it here is the opportunity to take it. If they don’t want to get it, nobody is gonna chase them down and force it on them.
“At least then we didn’t have a vaccine and there was nothing we could do,” said Tonya Jagneaux, a critical care physician at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge. “Sometimes you just feel like screaming.” “My absolute favorite patient and clinic, I just want to wrap my hands around every time I see him. He is the worst smoker ever. He's killing himself. I can't make him stop. I love that man. I never busted him. We've had the talk. He's not going to quit,” O’Neal said. “I don't want people to think that we don't see people who make bad choices for themselves.
As burned out and frustrated as these physicians are about vaccine resistance in their communities, they know that condemning the sick and unvaccinated will only make matters worse. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, told reporters Friday that “it's time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks.
Almost every public health official, local vaccine volunteer and physician in Alabama and Louisiana who spoke to POLITICO pointed to social media and the media as the main reason people in their neighborhoods are still holding out on the vaccine.
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