Teens Sneaking Behind Parents’ Backs To Get Covid Vaccine
Many are stuck in a tug of war between one parent who says yes and the other who says no. Increasingly, adolescents are seeking ways to be vaccinated without their parents’ consent.
The New York Times:
As Parents Forbid Covid Shots, Defiant Teenagers Seek Ways To Get Them
Teenagers keep all sorts of secrets from their parents. Drinking. Sex. Lousy grades. But the secret that Elizabeth, 17, a rising high-school senior, keeps from hers is new to the buffet of adolescent misdeeds. She doesn’t want her parents to know that she is vaccinated against Covid-19. Her divorced parents have equal say over her health care. Although her mother strongly favors the vaccine, her father angrily opposes it and has threatened to sue her mother if Elizabeth gets the shot. Elizabeth is keeping her secret not only from her father, but also her mother, so her mom can have plausible deniability. (Hoffman, 6/26)
AP:
As Variant Rises, Vaccine Plan Targets ‘Movable Middle’
Thrown off-stride to reach its COVID-19 vaccination goal, the Biden administration is sending A-list officials across the country, devising ads for niche markets and enlisting community organizers to persuade unvaccinated people to get a shot. The strategy has the trappings of a political campaign, complete with data crunching to identify groups that can be won over. But the message is about public health, not ideology. The focus is a group health officials term the “movable middle” — some 55 million unvaccinated adults seen as persuadable, many of them under 30. (Alonso-Zaldivar, 6/27)
Politico:
Arkansas Governor Trying To Reverse His State's Trends On Vaccination
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday that hospitalizations are up among those who are unvaccinated and that vaccinations have slowed, a worrying trend among several states across the country. Hutchinson said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that “people started feeling comfortable” after vaccines were first doled out. “People saw the cases of hospitalizations go down. And so, the urgency of getting the vaccine slowed down,” he said. (Bice, 6/27)
Las Vegas Review-Journal:
Rewards Haven’t Provided Big Boost For Nevada COVID-19 Vaccinations
Sisolak announced a state raffle on June 17 in which vaccinated residents could win a total of $5 million in prizes, including college tuition and a $1 million grand prize. The rewards were intended to boost the state’s declining numbers of new vaccinations. Brian Labus, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostasticis at UNLV’s School of Public Health, said the offer didn’t immediately result in big gains. “There wasn’t a giant spike in people vaccinated the next day,” he said when asked to review vaccination data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Through Friday, the seven-day daily average of first doses administered also appeared to continue its downward trend. (Hynes, 6/27)
CNBC:
Covid Vaccines Work But More People Need To Get The Shots: U.S. Doctor
Vaccines are working against Covid-19, including the highly contagious delta variant — but the challenge is in getting enough people inoculated, according to a professor of preventive medicine at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. “Leaving it in the refrigerator doesn’t help, that won’t prevent disease. You have got to move that vaccine into arms,” William Schaffner said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday. (Choudhury, 6/28)
In other news about the vaccine rollout —
San Francisco Chronicle:
Vaccination Clinic Serves Local Deaf Community As Alameda County Shifts From Mass Sites
Speaking in sign language, Jacqueline Augustine said her right arm hurt after she received her first dose of the coronavirus vaccine on Saturday. Augustine received the shot at a small pop-up clinic inside the Deaf Counseling Advocacy and Referral Agency in San Leandro. The clinic was designed to attract people from the deaf and hearing-impaired community as well as anyone else in the area who still needs a vaccination. “My family was so worried about me,” said Augustine, who was going to get a shot in March but developed a skin infection that kept her housebound for months. “My family was encouraging me. My doctor was, too. He said it’s time.” (Cabanatuan, 6/26)
Axios:
Black People Lag In COVID Vaccinations Even In Predominantly Black Areas
Black people in the city of Philadelphia, the nation's largest predominantly Black county, are lagging far behind white people when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, the Washington Post reports. It's a reflection of larger racial disparities in vaccination rates across the United States. "Coronavirus immunizations are the latest iteration of the pandemic’s unequal burden," the Post writes. (Chen, 6/27)
Politico:
Rush To Close Vaccination Gap For Hispanics
Troves of misinformation, language barriers and fears around immigration enforcement are hampering efforts to vaccinate Hispanic communities against Covid-19, challenging the Biden administration’s push to crush the coronavirus as a dangerous new variant quickly spreads. Much of the nationwide attention on the slowing vaccination campaign has focused on hard-line resisters, predominately in Republican-led states in the South and Mountain West. But Hispanic communities, even as they’re among the most eager to receive the shots, are still facing barriers to vaccination that could leave them vulnerable to the virus this summer, according to interviews with nearly two dozen people working on vaccination efforts, including state officials and community groups. (Roubein and Goldberg, 6/27)