OAHHS Hospital Voice Spring/Summer 2021

25 Spring/Summer 2021 been, Oregon has been one of the better places to be in the United States. We’ve had a lower infec- tion rate generally, our death rate is much lower than most other states, and we are 18th in our vac- cination rate now overall. So, I think generally you have more chance to be alive if you are in Oregon in this pandemic than in other places, which is a testa- ment to the hard work of every- one out there, and to all Oregonians who did put on a mask when asked, who did social distance, who quarantined when they were sick and who did not spread the virus as much as other places. As you mentioned, now the work is harder getting those doses to targeted groups. How do you do that and overcome some of the hesitancy that is out there? It’s multi-fold. There are so many reasons why people have made a choice not to get vaccinated. The piece that I’ve been reflecting on is every COVID death is a tragedy, but the COVID deaths in the last few weeks are even more of a trag- edy because the 92 percent of those that have died were unvac- cinated or were not fully vacci- nated. It just points to where we are in the pandemic, vaccines save lives, but there are a lot of people for a lot of different reasons who don’t trust the messenger, don’t trust the government, don’t believe their doctor, don’t believe their county commissioner, don’t believe the Governor, don’t believe the President. So, the switch from the messenger to really figuring out more oppor- tunities where someone may get their news from a source that doesn’t believe in the vaccine or sees social media posts that aren’t true about side effects, that per- son may also go see the doctor and although they may not trust their doctor either, I think over the next weeks and months, that’s where we can build an opportu- nity to have those conversations with their provider. I think that’s an important part of this. That will be slow and painful in some areas, and I think Dave, you hit it, bringing more access points for people who are busy, have two jobs, have a very family life, or who can’t take off work to go get vaccinated or be ready for the side effects, which could mean they would miss another day of work. Those opportunities could be at the market, it could be at a game, it could be lots of different places, where it’s like they have an extra day and so I’m going to get vacci- nated now. Opening up more of those opportunities, one of the successes in Jackson County at the FEMA site which brought mobile capacity was they went and set up at a market that serves largely Latino-Latinx-Hispanic community, and watching the rate there every Sunday, of when people got vaccinated, it’s when people were having their day off. So having that vaccine available, it was 10–15 people, and then 100 people…10 or 15 people, and then 100 people. So that’s what’s going to happen. Reassurance messages, having trusted messengers, makes a lot of sense, and then it will be the slog in doctor’s offices and the people that are really vaccine obstinate, what will it take to con- vince them? I’m not sure. The country is grappling with peo- ple saying I will not get vaccinated under any circumstances, maybe their doctor will convince them, maybe it will take one of their friends getting sick, who is also not vaccinated, I would really love for that not to be the reason for continues  Generally, with partnerships with the health care industry, with local public health agencies, Oregon, as bad as the pandemic has been, Oregon has been one of the better places to be in the United States. We’ve had a lower infection rate generally, our death rate is much lower than most other states, and we are 18th in our vaccination rate now overall. Dave Baden, OHA Chief Financial Officer