A nurse from New York told why she does not want to be vaccinated against COVID-19

After graduating from medical school, a nurse named Rachel (she does not want to give her last name) continues to study and follows the latest research and clinical trials in the field of medicine. Rachel also oversaw the development of approved vaccines for COVID-19 - Pfizer and Moderna. She is not yet ready to vaccinate herself due to concerns about the long-term consequences of such an injection. The girl shared her thoughts with the publication Patch.

“There is no data on long-term effects. This data is collected on you, ”said Rachel, who is a nurse at an outpatient mental health facility in Suffolk County. At the same time, she admits that she is afraid of contracting COVID-19, but does not agree to the vaccination yet.

The lack of many data on Pfizer and Moderna vaccines worries Rachel, so she plans to spend more time studying the vaccine. In addition, the nurse is researching information about the drug from Johnson & Johnson - one of her friends is participating in clinical trials of this vaccine.

“I am loyal to this vaccine because it is made in a more traditional way,” Rachel said, and noted that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is similar to the flu vaccine that is adjusted annually to combat different strains of the influenza virus.

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Rachel sees the main problem in the fact that the COVID-19 vaccines currently available in the United States use mRNA technology. This means that the drug does not contain a live or weakened virus, but instead stimulates the body to produce protein to boost immunity against this virus. It is difficult to say what such a mechanism will result in for the body in the long term. She still considers these vaccines experimental because they were made too quickly and there is not enough data. And the nurse does not consider the approval of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) for their use as proof that the drugs are safe, although she does not claim that they are dangerous. Rachel says there is not enough data to draw conclusions.

“These are vaccinations that no one has received before, so we are not aware of the long-term consequences,” she said.

Health professionals are sounding the alarm over the number of health workers who refuse vaccinations.

According to the Los Angeles Times, less than half of the workers at St. Elizabeth's Public Hospital in Tehema County, California agreed to get vaccinated against COVID-19. At Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills, California, one in five employees refused.

April Wu, a 31-year-old nurse working at Providence Holy Cross, admitted that she refused the vaccine because she is six months pregnant and is unsure about the safety of the drug as there have been no clinical trials in pregnant women.

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Dr. Stephen Noble, a 43-year-old heart surgeon from Portland, Oregon, said he also decided not to get vaccinated for now.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be a guinea pig,” he explained. “In the end, as a scientist, I just want to see what the data shows. And I need complete data. "

In his daily pandemic briefing on January 15, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that vaccination rates among hospital workers vary by part of the state. Vaccine refusal rates vary, he said, but New York City has the lowest (Cuomo did not give a figure) and the highest in Mid-Hudson (28%).