This week Fred and discuss the practicality of vaccine mandates and how best to increase the uptake of vaccination throughout the country. We discuss the challenge of vaccine hesitancy and the disservice that has done to our society, attributable to a relatively small number of individuals, the so-called disinformation dozen.
Meanwhile as vaccine supply starts to exceed demand, in part driven by hesitancy, some places are opening access to larger groups and in the case of Notre Dame University capitalizing on available resources to offer vaccination to students before they return home for the summer holiday
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick, I’m the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
Fred Goldstein
And I’m Fred Goldstein with accountable health here helping employers work with their employees to maintain healthy environments, improve the overall health reduce the cost of their health care. So Nick, another interesting week, we’re seeing a lot of vaccine rollout a lot of things happening with vaccines, we’ve been talking to a number of universities about what they’re planning to do. And there’s some interesting announcements from one of them this week, as I understand,
Nick van Terheyden
yeah, so Rob goes, forgive me if I say that wrong, I probably do. Or I say it in a funny way. But Rutgers came out with a vaccine mandate, they have essentially stated for their population that they are requiring the vaccine. And I know that creates some challenges. And it’s certainly one of the things that we’ve talked about in terms of, can you do it? Number one? So there’s an immediate question in my mind, based on the fact that these are not fully approved, these are under an emergency use authorization by the FDA. There’s also, you know, the fundamental issue of the United States, which is about freedom of choice and so forth. And, you know, do we really want to do that? Should we be imposing that? What are the consequences of that? And what happens when people don’t? or more importantly, can’t do it? How do you deal with that? And what’s the process? So let me be clear, first of all, I think it’s important for everybody to understand, I personally, the instant vaccine is available, and I’m eligible, I’m taking I’m taking anyone, I have no hesitation, any one of the three that are under EU a in the US. And in fact, there’s even another one that I think we’ve seen the data that I think is very compelling. But mandating it for me, based on the discussions that I have is something of a challenge. And, you know, I think we have to be respectful and work more in a cooperative way to persuade people that this is the right pathway so that they can make their own choice, or at least feel like they’re making their own choice. Same way that when you walk into McDonald’s, you feel like you’re making a good choice, healthy choice, but they’ve
use old
Nick van Terheyden
approaches to get you to pick, you know, all the things that are probably not healthy for you.
Fred Goldstein
So on this one, Nick, I think I’m gonna slightly disagree. And and here’s why. This is about college. This is about creating the safest environment possible to bring kids together with their teachers, the professor’s you’ve got other people walking around on the campus, potentially, your your staff that are doing other things, whether it’s housekeeping or security, or maintenance, etc. And we really know how badly damaged the telev approach to school has been. Right, and trying to create that safe environment where we can get kids college students back together. I think it’s critically important from not only a mental health perspective, but an education and economic perspective for the long term. And to do that we know, these vaccines, as we’re seeing in the in Israel and elsewhere, are having a difference we’re seeing even in the United States, the drop in deaths and hospitalizations for the elderly. So it’s a tough question. There are gonna be a lot of colleges that won’t be able to do that. There will be some that will. And it’ll be interesting over time to see how many I do think it’s best if we had it, not mandatory. But I think for certain situations, perhaps we need to do that. Obviously, we’re seeing now with New York with their passport, where you’re going to be able to do things get into activities, we’re seeing basketball teams announced they’re going to have a zone for vaccinated folks. So those are the incentives to get things done. I do think in colleges, not a lot, maybe a lot to do it. We’ll see I could be wrong, but it is a tough decision. In that case. I think I’d prefer it was done that way. But I understand why you can’t and obviously you have to give the appropriate exemptions to individuals who have immunity issues or religious issues that keep them from taking vaccines. So it’ll be interesting.
Nick van Terheyden
You know, those are great points, Fred. But let me just pick up on one thing that I think is important to understand here. We would not be in this circumstance, were it not for vaccine hesitancy, this country, the world, in fact, managed to eradicate a disease that was crippling many, we still have, you know, the history of polio, and all the challenges that occurred, but we rolled out vaccinations founded on sides. And even in that instance, we had some challenges. We weren’t perfect. But we’ve learned from all of that, you know, there’s hundreds of years of learning of science that has contributed to where we are with vaccinations. And we have vaccine hesitancy. And here’s my point, what I learned this past week is that a small minority of individuals are responsible for the majority of the myths and disinformation. My personal view is that there is no place for those individuals to be given a megaphone, we’ve essentially amplified that voice. It’s an outrage that these individuals and when you look at them, some of them, it’s their business to sell you junk that you know, the the snake oil salesman’s of the Wild West. And their interest is to get you to disagree with what’s going on with science so that you buy the junk that they’re trying to push out. And we have to do something about that, because that really is the source of all of this hesitancy.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, we know what the solutions are to this. It’s obviously vaccination. And those non pharmaceutical interventions that you always talk about wear masks socially distance and wash your hands. And those will make an incredible difference and allow us to get back to a newer normal. And if we don’t do that, I think you know, we’re just in serious trouble and be interesting to watch the colleges, there’s been another announcement, Notre Dame announced that they’re going to have vaccine available for all their students. Apparently the state of Indiana said, Let’s get the school the college kids vaccinated and the universities vaccinated, the staff etc. So they’re opening that up to get shots in before the end of the year. And I think other countries other states should be considering that, for example, Florida, where we have 40% excess vaccine in this state and they’ve dropped the age from 60 to 50. To 40 in three weeks. Yeah, it’s great to get into younger people, but but we needed to get it in. So let’s get it to people who will take it and then figure out how we get the others to begin to get themselves vaccinated, this hesitancy problem as you raise is a major issue.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, we have to overcome it introduced trust and let folks understand, I think, you know, built on the shoulders of Jana was an article I read this past week that sort of, you know, amplifies this, hundreds of years of Innovation and Science and work. And each time we learn, we always learn and apply that to the new circumstance, and we have to engender trust so that folks can get it. You know, I applaud Notre Dame I think it was, you know, has rolled this out, they’re pushing for that, what a brilliant strategy, you’ve got available vaccine, use it, get it into the hands of people that are willing, so that they can then take back and vaccinate. So that now expands the population, because these folks will go back. So I think, you know, practical implementations to get as quickly as possible up this ladder. And then by the way, let’s do this internationally. This is not just about the United States. This is a worldwide problem. We have to solve for that
Fred Goldstein
throughout the world. Absolutely. We probably should be considering what we can do to help Brazil out right now, as we’ve talked about prior to this, just an unbelievable situation down there. So once again, another fantastic week, Nick, this is Fred Goldstein with accountable health helping you and your companies create better environments for your employees your overall health system.
Nick van Terheyden
This is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business.
