‘It’s too new.’ Inside Beaufort, Jasper Co.’s fight against COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy
Brittany Brown, 24, has no plans to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Brown, an administrative assistant for a tree removal company in Ridgeland, feels like she’s healthy enough without a shot.
The lack of long-term safety data on coronavirus vaccines also makes her nervous.
“It’s too new, and nobody knows what will happen in the future,” Brown told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette in a Tuesday interview.
She’s not alone in her concerns. The local demand for doses has plummeted across the Lowcountry since early April, with the initial crush of vaccine hunters long gone.
Doctors, advocates and government officials now face the daunting challenge of persuading residents like Brown to roll up their sleeves for a jab, as South Carolina’s vaccination campaign continues to slow. The state is also racing to expand vaccine access for underserved communities with lower inoculation rates.
“I think people kind of realized that we’re hitting a pinnacle of availability,” said Cathy Ulmer, owner of the Ulmer Family Pharmacy and Wellness Center in Bluffton.
“People are still getting it. They’re just not beating down your door to get it.”
‘It’s not one issue’
Beaufort County’s seven-day average of new first-dose vaccinations has taken a nosedive in recent weeks, mirroring a statewide trend.
About 338 county residents are now being inoculated per day. In comparison, an average of 1,072 first-dose vaccinations were recorded every 24 hours in late March.
What happened?
“The people who were really, really clamoring for it” have been vaccinated, said Dr. Faith Polkey, chief clinical officer at Beaufort Jasper Hampton Comprehensive Health Services.
That means thousands of local residents are still wary, uninterested, adamantly opposed or unable to get a dose immediately.
“Vaccine hesitancy” is a catch-all phrase for the phenomena, experts say. But the individual reasons for waiting on or rejecting a shot can be extremely complicated, Polkey said.
“It’s not one issue,” Ulmer added.
David Burke, co-owner of Burke’s Main Street Pharmacy on Hilton Head Island, said some people fear possible side effects after Moderna’s second dose.
Others are now worried about Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine after the federal government in mid-April temporarily paused its administration to investigate reports of extremely rare blood clots in a few patients, Ulmer said.
Young adults, Burke added, also seem less willing to get a shot.
“They don’t think they need it. They don’t see it as a risk to them,” Dr. Edward Simmer, director of the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, told agency board members Thursday.
About 11.2% of Beaufort County’s estimated population is 25- to 34-years-old, but that age group accounts for only 5.7% of county residents with at least one dose. (Jasper County has logged similar percentages.)
National polls have indicated that 18- to 29-year-olds, Republicans and white evangelical Christians are among those least interested in getting vaccinated.
But Polkey also stressed that a lack of convenient vaccine access is a problem for some local patients who would otherwise get inoculated.
Take, as an example, service industry workers south of the Broad River, Polkey said.
“We found this in talking to some of our Hispanic and Latino folks,” she said. “Having evening hours, or having (a vaccine clinic) on a day when people aren’t necessarily working, is going to help.”
Roughly 11% of Beaufort County’s estimated population is Hispanic or Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, yet just 5.4% of first doses have gone to those county residents, DHEC data show.
‘I’ll take my chances’
Some skeptical residents will eventually get vaccinated, Ulmer said, which is crucial to achieving widespread immunity to COVID-19.
Others, though, are out of reach for now.
Gray Smith, for example, in a Tuesday interview said he will never get Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna’s vaccines. He’s also uninterested in Johnson & Johnson’s shot.
Smith, 69, is not a registered Democrat or Republican, but he describes himself as a constitutional conservative. He studied biology at Princeton University in the 1970s and now lives on Hilton Head.
Coronavirus vaccine data in the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, or VAERS, are particularly troubling to Smith. (Clinical trials and real-world studies have found the vaccines to be safe and effective.)
Smith cited a segment from Tucker Carlson, a conservative Fox News host, in which Carlson used VAERS data to suggest that 3,362 Americans from late December to April 23 died because of the vaccines.
“I’ll take my chances with COVID,” Smith said.
(PolitiFact recently wrote that VAERS is an “open-source database often misused by anti-vaccine activists to make false claims about vaccine safety.” The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has analyzed the VAERS data and says that “a review of available clinical information, including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records has not established a causal link to COVID-19 vaccines.” There is, however, a “plausible causal relationship” between Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine and a rare blood clotting syndrome, according to the CDC. Three deaths have been linked to the clots.)
Residents like Smith and Brown, though, are unwavering.
“There’ll be some people who don’t get it,” Polkey, the chief clinical officer, acknowledged.
The goal now is to vaccinate as many residents as possible, she said. That way, unvaccinated people are protected, too.
There’s much work to be done.
Roughly 48.8% of Beaufort County’s 15 and older population has yet to receive a shot, according to DHEC. Health leaders are shifting their vaccination strategies to sway those people.
Hilton Head and Coastal Carolina hospitals, for example, are closing their vaccine site at the Buckwalter Recreation Center in Bluffton.
Daisy Burroughs, a spokeswoman for the hospitals, in a Wednesday statement confirmed that neither medical center will offer Pfizer doses to the public moving forward, unless Hilton Head Regional Healthcare hosts a vaccination event or provides shots via a specific, “targeted” initiative (like a partnership with a school district).
DHEC is also moving away from vaccine events and wants to supply shots at events, Simmer said. He envisions vaccination tables at local fairs and festivals across the Palmetto State.
Primary care providers and pharmacists, Ulmer said, will play a crucial role in the revamped outreach efforts, too.
“I’ve had to hold a lot of people’s hands,” Ulmer said, “and work with them to get their vaccines.” Independent pharmacies “can spend more time helping them understand the importance of doing it,” she said.
Note: Data in this story are current as of Thursday.
This story was originally published May 16, 2021 at 6:30 AM.
