Jose Angel hadn’t really wanted to get the coronavirus vaccine.
“I thought it was turning people into zombies,” said the 33-year-old construction worker from Corona.
Last weekend, though, he finally gave in. He and his wife, Virginia, got their first shots at a pop-up clinic at the Corona-Norco YMCA.
“I wanted to travel, but you can’t do anything” without proof of vaccination, Angel said. Plus, his mom, who he said follows the news more than he does, kept encouraging him to get it.
When it comes to the coronavirus vaccine, it may seem like minds are firmly made up for or against them. But that’s not entirely true. Vaccinations are well below levels seen in the first half of 2021, but since Thanksgiving when the highly contagious omicron variant was first identified, a steady number of people, averaging more than 30,000 per day, have been rolling up their sleeve for a first dose in California.
From Jan. 1 to Jan. 25, almost three-quarters of a million people got their first dose in the Golden State. That’s about 9% of the population that was eligible but unvaccinated when the year began, according to an analysis of data from the California Department of Public Health.
Freshly vaccinated people at two recent events in Southern California offered a range of reasons for why they finally got the jab.
Some were young kids who just recently became eligible. Among the adults, some like Angel felt restrained by restrictions against unvaccinated people, or had been encouraged by relatives. Others had gotten worried as the recent surge in cases affected friends, family and co-workers. Some said vaccines have been around long enough now that they’re finally reassured the shots are safe. Many said multiple factors played a role.
After Angel and his wife got their shots Saturday, Jan. 22, he said he was still a little unsure about his decision. But once he heard that a study had just found booster shots to be 90% effective at keeping people out of the hospital even if they were infected, he sounded enthusiastic about getting two more doses.
Vaccinating kids
Alexandra Wortmann of Eastvale turned 5 about two months ago, around the time vaccinations were approved for children 5 to 11 years old.
Her parents, Leticia and Dominik, are both vaccinated and boosted, but Leticia Wortmann said she’d been hesitant about her daughter getting the shot.
“She’s so young, and I was worried about the long-term effects,” Wortmann said. “But everything sounds good.”
She talked to Alexandra’s pediatrician, friends who are doctors or nurses, and other friends and family, and decided that the pros outweighed the cons, especially with so many infections now from the omicron variant.
For Sepuita Siasau, 35, of Ontario, the decision to vaccinate her kids was easy. She’s lost too many family members to COVID-19, she said, including her great-grandmother just recently and two longtime friends, a mother and son who died one day apart.
Five of her children, ages 6 to 12, got their second shots — plus, to their delight, free backpacks from a local nonprofit — last weekend at the Corona clinic.
“I needed to make sure all my kids are vaccinated,” Siasau said. “I needed my kids to be safe.”
She knows the vaccine isn’t a guarantee against infection, but she said it eases her mind to know she probably won’t have to take a severely sick child to the hospital.
“I feel great,” daughter Lineni, 11, said with a big grin. Having the vaccine “is like having fighters fighting for me.”
Not getting sick twice
Ann Clark, 53, of Rancho Cucamonga got her first dose of the vaccine Wednesday, Jan. 26, at the Jessie Turner Health & Fitness Community Center in Fontana, which offers free shots and tests every weekday from noon to 8 p.m. through the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health.
Clark caught the virus about three months ago, probably while on vacation. She said she hadn’t been vaccinated before because she was still “just taking it all in.” She runs residential facilities for adults with disabilities, and said her residents and staff had all stayed coronavirus-free, so the vaccine just didn’t seem like a priority.
But after surviving COVID-19, Clark said she never wants to to through that again. Her husband caught it as well, and she said they both felt like they were on their deathbeds.
Clark underwent monoclonal antibody treatment, which meant she had to wait 90 days before she could be vaccinated. She got her shot as soon as she was eligible. “I wouldn’t wish COVID on anyone,” she said.
“I get it, being skeptical about the vaccines,” Clark said. “But people are dying. If there’s something available to keep you alive, to get less sick, take it.”
Changing minds
Last weekend’s clinic at the Corona YMCA was run by the insurance company Health Net, which is trying to host 180 clinics in a year.
Darrel Ng, the company’s vice president for communications and marketing, said Health Net has learned that just setting up a site with nurses and shots isn’t enough — you have to have an event to go with it, like a health fair or a taco truck, if you want the clinic to be successful.
“It’s really block-by-block work now,” Ng said, “not like in the beginning days” when people were desperate for appointments.
Josie Gaytan is director of government communications and relations for Reach Out, a local nonprofit that was giving out $20 gift certificates to Target or Stater Bros. to anyone who got vaccinated at the Corona event. Gaytan said Reach Out has been working with Riverside County on vaccine clinics, and also recently opened a free testing site in Jurupa Valley.
Among the work Reach Out does for the county, Gaytan said, is surveying people about why they are getting the vaccine and using that information to find ways to motivate more people.
She said answers are split evenly between those who say they’ve become scared after more people around them get sick and those who feel constrained by vaccine mandates.
Gaytan also said a lot of people report being discouraged by their religious communities. One person who answered the survey said their church doesn’t believe in the coronavirus vaccine, but they got a shot anyway because their family had been hit really hard by the virus.
For many people, several factors came together to help change their mind. That was the case for Tiqueon Smith, 33, of Fontana.
He got his first shot Wednesday in Fontana, and said he was motivated by seeing people around him getting sick, encouragement from his family, even commercials on TV. “They say save the world — I’m all for it!”
But the biggest incentive for Smith, who works as a chef in Big Bear, was the mandate in Los Angeles that requires people to be fully vaccinated to go into restaurants and some other establishments. He said the last time he tried to go out, he got turned away.
“I’m craving some good food, but you gotta be vaccinated!”
First doses, by the numbers
While some people are changing their minds in favor of getting vaccinated, state data indicates that vaccine opposition may be entrenched in some areas.
Counties that already had higher vaccination rates at the start of 2022 also have had higher percentages of unvaccinated residents getting their first dose this month.
On Jan. 1, 80% of eligible Los Angeles County residents and 79% of Orange County residents had received at least one dose. Riverside County was at 66% and San Bernardino County at 62%.
So far this month, 9% of L.A. County residents who were eligible but unvaccinated, and 8.2% in Orange County, have received their first shots. Those percentages are only 4.7% in Riverside County and 4.2% in San Bernardino County.
One gap that is closing: While people in healthier communities are much more likely to be vaccinated than people in less healthy communities, so far in January more first doses have been going to people in those less healthy communities.
Only about 9% of Californians range in age from 5 to 11, but 31% of people who got their first dose so far in January were in that age category. That makes sense, as that group just became eligible for the shots in November.
About 9% of first doses went to kids ages 12-17, while 60% went to adults.
Demographic figures used by the state health department show that 41% who got their first dose this month identified as Latino, 19% as White, 14% as Asian, 5% as Black and 12% as other races. (Race wasn’t known for about 9% of first-dose recipients.)
A foreign perspective
Roberto Cruz was in a bit of disbelief at the Corona clinic. He, his wife Karla Ontiveros and their 8-year-old daughter, Little Karla, live in Mexico City and were visiting a cousin, Dora Sanchez.
Children in Mexico can’t get the coronavirus vaccine yet, but Little Karla received her first shot in December in Texas. The family had planned a vacation to Disneyland, and timed it so she could get her second dose in California. All three adults also got their booster shots.
Roberto said that when he got his first shot in Mexico, he stood in line for four hours in a crowd of about 20,000 people. It took about two hours to get his second dose.
“In Mexico, the vaccine is not available for everyone; the government doesn’t have enough money. It’s surprising to us that here, where vaccines are readily available, the government has to incentivize it,” he said, referring to the gift cards, backpacks and other goodies being given out that day. “It’s just ridiculous — a first-world problem. Really.”
He said he has family members who died from COVID-19 before vaccines were approved.
“I can’t believe people don’t want to get vaccinated. Don’t play Russian roulette.”
Find a vaccine
Vaccines are offered free to anyone age 5 and older in California. To find a location giving shots, contact your health care provider or go to https://myturn.ca.gov. For assistance or to have questions answered, call the state’s COVID-19 hotline at 1-833-422-4255.
Source: Orange County Register
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