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Ava Barker, of Buena Park, California, revived a long family tradition this year: she organized a Mother’s Night party. “I started doing it years ago,” he says, but it skipped the last few years because schedules didn’t fit. Then passed COVID-19.
This year, the party was underway, and Ava’s brother and sister-in-law, along with other relatives, had to be there to revive the tradition. They planned to start the Mother’s Day weekend with an adult barbecue and then spend Mother’s Day with her children. Barker and her husband were expecting a dozen relatives. “Now that everyone is vaccinated, I feel comfortable for everyone to come,” he said during the days leading up to the party. “It wasn’t that he demanded that everyone be vaccinated, it’s that all the guests are.”
If last summer was Lockdown Summer, this year may be the summer that means “VIP” for vaccinated and immunized people. At events ranging from casual barbecues in the backyard to more formal parties, concerts, weddings and other gatherings, vaccination can be the ticket.
Will this tendency to exclude unvaccinated people lead to an increase in vaccines and less hesitation about the vaccine? Maybe, say public health officials and researchers, but they disagree about the difference the exclusions will make.
Do not leave home without vaccination tests
As vaccination has spread (approximately 44% of Americans were completely vaccinated as of Sunday), so have the places and events where organizers require a vaccination test or a negative vaccination test. COVID within 72 hours of the event, in many cases to satisfy the state. mandates on reopening.
Los Angeles Dodger Stadium, among other Major League venues, offers a vaccinated section that requires vaccination tests for adults or a negative COVID test for children ages 2 to 16.
Wedding organizers report that their clients include the vaccine requirement or negative tests on wedding invitations and websites. Sometimes the request is not just from the couple planning to get married. “Many locations call for guests to be vaccinated,” says Charley King, a wedding organizer who owns Bluebell Events in Los Angeles. Guests send vaccination tests or their negative tests directly to the sites, she says. “Most of the people [invited] “I’m so excited to be back at weddings, they say‘ Oh, sure, ’” she says.
Concert performers from The Canyon, a group of Southern California clubs that host live music events, such as those at other venues, must show vaccination tests or a negative COVID test within 72 hours. The policy is prominently posted on The Canyon’s website, citing state mandates that require it.
Vaccination will also be required for all attendees at any outdoor summer concert at the Los Angeles County Arboretum, hosted by Pasadena Symphony and POPS, according to Lora Unger, the CEO. When purchasing a ticket, customers tick a box saying they have been completely vaccinated or will be on the date of the concert. Then they take the check to the concert.
“The board approved this policy after much consideration and analysis,” Unger says. “The orchestra has to sit very close. Vaccines are really needed to allow our musicians to do their job. The public wants to make sure they go to vaccinated and safe events that minimize possible exposure to COVID because they don’t want to be We are implementing this policy because our musicians need it and our audience wants it. “
He anticipates that other scenarios will soon follow the same for the summer performances.
Meanwhile, some private meeting hosts only decide to stay with people they already know are vaccinated or specify that the event is for vaccinated people only. Shelly Groves, who owns a dog seat service in the Atlanta area, hopes to toast again for a friend’s new home at a meeting scheduled for mid-May. The celebration will include only four women, all vaccinated, who have been good friends for about 5 years. “We’ll have drinks at his new house, then walk to a restaurant and sit outside. Since we’ve all been vaccinated, we can get together,” Groves says.
In Los Angeles, a teacher recently hosted a garden party in the garden of “fabulous vaccinated women,” keeping the group at about a dozen. She knew them well enough to trust that they would not lie about their condition.
According to CDC guidelines published on April 27, fully vaccinated people can skip the mask outside, except in crowded environments, and visits inside fully vaccinated people are likely to be low-risk. .
Change your mind about sitting down at a party?
“Right now, about 55 to 65 percent of the U.S. adult population wants to get vaccinated,” says David Abramson, PhD, associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health. .
So while the tendency to require event vaccination may hurt those who doubt it, it won’t change everyone’s opinion, he says.
Abramson investigates the relationship between beliefs and vaccine-related decision making. It has surveyed 3,000 U.S. residents. Although he has not yet finalized the results of the research, he found that “the vaccination of the vaccine is like a spectrum, with a wide range of people in this group.” Among the subgroups you have identified:
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Wait and see the group. Some are waiting to see if the vaccine really makes a difference; others to see if something bad happens after you get it.
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Undecided group. They just don’t know if they will get the vaccine or not.
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A group that says it will only be vaccinated if it is forced to do so, for example, to work or to go to school
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A group that absolutely rejects the vaccine for several reasons
Requiring vaccines to participate in certain activities would probably persuade the group to “wait and see” more easily, Abramson says. It can also influence the undecided group. “It will not change those who reject it unless they are forced or those who reject it for other reasons,” he says.
In his study, he follows people over time to see if he changes his hesitation.
William Schaffner, MD, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, says he has heard of numerous dinners, poker and poker games, and vaccinated-only weddings. “In a small way, they may convince some friends who are hesitant to get vaccinated, but I doubt that explains many ‘converts.'”
He agrees that hesitants are a mixed bag. Some, he says, have a fundamentally religious approach to life, an attitude of “God will prevail.” He has a hard time understanding that, he says. “If they had appendicitis, would not wait to see. They would go see a surgeon. “
Decades ago, when the polio epidemic was raging, people were hesitant to get the vaccine, which was made available in 1955. Public sentiment was transformed in 1956, after Elvis Presley got the shot behind the scenes when he made a appearance a The Ed Sullivan show. Immunization levels among adolescents at the time increased from 0.6% to 80%. Many celebrities have promoted the COVID-19 vaccine, but some researchers claim that the link between these recommendations and the decision to get vaccinated is far from solid.
These days, Schaffner says, religious leaders could change minds. “If religious leaders promoted vaccination as something appropriately kind to do on behalf of others to gather to worship, this could have a much greater impact. [than the hosts requiring guests to be vaccinated]. However, so far, religious leaders have been more followers than leaders, not wanting to create turmoil in their congregations. “
Amesh Adalja, MD, a senior scholar and infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, states that vaccinated-only sections and vaccinated-only events make perfect sense. “I think this vaccine makes a big personal difference to a person. It should be thought of and promoted as a value for them that allows them to resume their pre-pandemic life safely. I also think that when people can see tangibly how vaccinating them will change their lives for the better, motivating them to get vaccinated. “
Beyond Excluding: Would Shunning Work Better?
Michael J. Stern, a former federal prosecutor and former prosecutor, should demand a vaccination test to work, play and travel. USA Today opinion columnist. In a comments published on April 30, Stern proposes a more direct and less tactile approach than simply not inviting the unvaccinated. Avoid them, he suggests.
He writes: “[President Joe] The launch of the Biden vaccine, which is a huge success, means that soon everyone who wants to have a vaccine will have one. When that happens, restaurants, movie theaters, gyms, barbershops, airlines and Ubers should require vaccination testing before they can provide their services. ”He says companies should also require it to protect an outbreak that paralyzes them financially. and to close them.
“Things should be personal, too,” he adds, suggesting that party hosts request that friends be vaccinated before they join the event. Stern argues that, as a country, we have become too tolerant of a little-understood individual autonomy that ignores the existential needs of the vast majority of its citizens. “
In an interview after the publisher’s publication, Stern said he was pushed to write it after he got angry because so many people didn’t get the vaccine, and then experts who heard that the herd’s immunity s ‘escapes our reach because of this hesitation.
He has received hundreds of responses to his comments via email and Twitter. “There’s a lot of support,” he says. But some of the responses were ” very cruel. They made it clear that he was suggesting that people be detained at the grocery store [and vaccinated] before they were allowed to return to their cars. This is not at all what he suggested. What I argued was that if they are not vaccinated, they should not enter certain places, such as Ubers and movie theaters. “In a word, he says, they should be shunned.
Stern says the responses also included nasty tricks, but focuses on positive responses, such as a Twitter follower who tweeted, “Omg! Finally someone wants to vocalize what most northerners are thinking. Americans! Thank you. “
SOURCES:
Ava Barker, party hostess, Buena Park, CA.
Michael J. Stern, former federal prosecutor; USA Today opinion columnist.
Shelly Groves, owner, babysitting service, Atlanta area.
The Canyon.
Twitter.
Charley King, owner, Bluebell Events, Los Angeles.
David Abramson, PhD, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences and Director, Research Program on Population Impact, Recovery, and Resilience, New York University School of Global Public Health.
Amesh Adalja, MD, senior scholar, infectious disease specialist, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Baltimore.
William Schaffner, MD, Professor of Preventive Medicine and Specialist in Infectious Diseases, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville.
CDC: “Provisional Public Health Recommendations for Fully Vaccinated People.”
Scientific American: “How Elvis got Americans to accept the polio vaccine.”
The New York Times: “Celebrities are in favor of coveted vaccines. Help?”
USA Today: “It’s time to start shunning the ‘hesitant’ vaccine. They’re blocking COVID herd immunity.”
Major League Baseball website.
