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The rollout of COVID-19 vaccines around the world really has been an uphill struggle.

Sure, there are those who have concerns about getting the jab that are somewhat tethered to reality.

It doesn’t help that the loudest people in the room (or on the streets) are often those shouting about 5G, genocide, and other nonsense.

Chances are you’re not going to win anybody over who consistently compares possible vaccination requirements for entering a restaurant to the Holocaust.

UCT psychiatry professor Jackie Hoare agrees, saying an anti-vaxxer like that is a “lost cause” but somebody defined as vaccine-hesitant “can be shifted with an empathetic approach”.

Hoare is also head of consultation-liaison psychiatry at Groote Schuur Hospital and has spent a great deal of time chatting with healthcare workers in the COVID-19 high-care unit at Groote Schuur Hospital.

The idea is to help them develop “a conceptual framework and skills [for use] during encounters with unvaccinated individuals”.

TimesLIVE reports:

Many of the vaccine-hesitant group…were simply worried about side effects.

Others “are interested in being vaccinated but have experienced barriers such as location of vaccine sites, money for travel, childcare issues or time off work” and some believe they can resist Covid-19 with a healthy diet and a positive attitude.

“Fears around public safety, misinformation, perceived difficulty in registering online and far-removed vaccine sites are factors contributing to vaccine hesitancy,” said Hoare.

Having been worked to the bone for the best part of 20 months now patience among healthcare workers is wearing thin.

Pleas on social media through open letters and gutwrenching accounts fall on deaf ears or worse, with online abuse often following.

Imagine battling to save lives in the high-care ward and outside there are some idiots denying that COVID-19 even exist?

This means empathy for the unvaccinated they treat is being tested. Hoare has advised that they use the following approach:

“Our experience has been that supportive listening and allowing vaccine-hesitant patients to express their fears and concerns, while being respectful and patient, provided them with the space to reflect and think about their decisions. Many were able to shift after a single conversation…

“We should begin with empathy, not evidence. Evidence is not enough to reduce vaccine hesitancy. It is also important not to dismiss people’s realities, as vaccine hesitancy in some communities is rooted in a long history of social exclusion and negative healthcare experiences.”

The same goes for everyday conversations with friends and family who may be hesitant.

With the fourth wave well and truly underway and cases on the rise, there’s sure to be plenty of COVID-chat at every gathering.

Yay. Can’t wait. It will be the same across the globe.

Empathy and not evidence is a good starting point but it never hurts to the armed with the latter.

We are still some way off having a deep understanding of the Omicron variant but the first in-depth laboratory study of how the variant might behave in vaccinated people was released yesterday.

The study was carried out by researchers at the Africa Health Research Institute in Durban. Here’s The Washington Post with the good and the bad news:

The bad: This variant is extremely slippery. It eludes a great deal of the protection provided by disease-fighting antibodies. That means people who previously recovered from a bout of covid-19 could be reinfected. And people who have been vaccinated could suffer breakthrough infections.

But the findings of the study, which tested the omicron variant of the coronavirus against the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, aren’t entirely bleak. The study, released Tuesday, found that even if the power of vaccines is diminished in the face of omicron, there’s still some protection afforded against the virus. And it suggests that booster shots could be key in the battle with the variant.

The preliminary data in the study has not yet been peer-reviewed, we are only just starting to figure out how the Omicron variant works, and these lab experiments are a highly artificial way of testing how vaccines hold up.

I’m sure the questions below will be asked regularly so here’s a solid response:

Hi!
– Vaccinated people are LESS LIKELY to get Covid, and you can’t spread it if you don’t get it.
– Vaccinated people who DO get Covid recover quicker and have faster drops in their viral load. So infectious for less time
– Fewer infections and lower VL = fewer mutations.

Yw!

— Alastair McAlpine, MD (@AlastairMcA30) December 3, 2021

Just remember your empathy.

That rings true whether or not you’re talking to someone about their views on getting the vaccine.

[sources:timeslive&washpost]