Are there any nurses that are not vaccinated? How to prepare to be safe at work?

toomuchbaloney · Jul 21, 2021

Of course, not vaccinating guarantees spread of the contagion. Not vaccinating also guarantees that more people will get sick, will suffer and will die from covid. Not vaccinating guarantees that this pandemic will be prolonged.

No is not a joke that some nurses are suddenly unable to evaluate the science of vaccines because of poorly sourced opinions and unfounded fears.

jaw2004, MSN, RN · Jul 21, 2021

I've been a nurse for 40 years, and the last thing to scare me as bad as COVID was when AIDS first appeared without knowing how it was spread. At that time, we DIDN'T regularly use gloves and other PPE for simple things like blood draws or no sterile procedures. AIDS changed our practice. And we are still trying to find a vax for it, but at least it is no longer an automatic death sentence.

COVID has also changed our practice and will continue to do so. Early in the pandemic, COVID tore through my mother-in-law's SNF and several residents died, including my mother-in-law's sister. She was unable to see any family for months. She had a mild case of COVID, and was vaccinated as well. Two weeks ago, a CNA who cared for her and wasn't vaccinated got COVID. Now my mother-in-law is once again in quarantine. My family is wanting to know why the CNA wasn't vaccinated when working with the most vulnerable.

My own clinic nurse hasn't been vaccinated yet, because she has had two severe reactions to the flu vax requiring hospitalization. Her oncologist has recommended she wait until she has completed her current regime before getting it. We all support her due to her own fragile condition. She is always masked and utilizes great hand hygiene.

There will always be nurses and others who are not vaccinated due to their own medical conditions. But I do not want someone caring for my family who do not understand enough about science to be able to make an informed decision.

Federal courts are already supporting universities requiring incoming students be vaccinated. This will be required along with the flu, unless there is a valid medical reason. If you really want to work in healthcare, I suggest you consider getting vaccinated, or else choose another career.

macawake, MSN · Jul 21, 2021

The content of the vaccine isn’t ”unsubstantiated”. They have been through tests/trials before being approved. If you buy aspirin or acetaminophen at your local pharmacy, do you distrust them as well and consider the contents ”unsubstantiated”, or does that line of thinking only apply to Covid-19 vaccines? And just so we’re clear, the mRNA vaccines do absolutely nothing to a person’s DNA.

In healthcare and epidemiology we do not talk about ”survival rate”. It’s mortality rate. Many people who survive a Covid-19 infection, do so with considerable sequelae. And you know what? Even 1% of a very large number of people, will still amount to a significant amount of human suffering and ultimately death.

Yes, having certain comorbidities are considered risk factors for a serious outcome from a Covid infection and of course being healthy is a good thing, but it doesn’t mean that you can just forgo the vaccine.

You really can’t tell anyone that everything will be fine. You have no idea who on this forum might catch Covid-19 and get only very light symptoms that they hardly notice, and who might catch it and have to spend three weeks on ECMO and perhaps die.

The vaccines don’t offer 100% protection, but they certainly are our best option.

macawake, MSN · Jul 21, 2021

This vaccine prevents hospitalization and death. Isn’t that worth something in itself? Anyway, there is also evidence that it may well also have an effect on transmission. I just posted this in another thread and will post it here as well. Please read it and look at the results. What do they tell you?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2107058

No, everyone will not catch Covid and die. I’ve never suggested that and I don’t think anyone else has either. But if we hadn’t been so lucky as to get several safe and effective vaccines as quickly as we did, many more people would have died. The virus would eventually have made the rounds in the part of the population that is still naive. That’s inevitable. It’s only a matter of time. So I think we as nurses, ought to take a moment and think about how fortunate it is that we have the vaccines, so fewer people will die and fewer people will have to mourn their loved ones.

I’m glad that you took precautions and haven’t gotten infected. Good job. (sincerely).

klone, MSN, RN · Jul 21, 2021

On 7/19/2021 at 5:55 PM, CommunityRNBSN said:

Affecting it how? We’ve only been giving the vaccine for six months, so it would be mathematically impossible for someone to say they were fertile before being vaccinated and now aren’t.

The ACOG has published a policy statement refuting any claims that it affects fertility. There is ZERO evidence of this claim.

Editorial Team / Admin · Jul 21, 2021

Closed for Staff review.

Sugarbear55 · Jul 23, 2021

I am a retired RN. I tested positive for Covid in April approximately 10 days after caring for an elderly Aunt who became ill on day two post vaccination. On day three she was admitted to the hospital with a dx of weakness, mental status change. She is now in an SNF and is effectively bedridden as she is too weak to ambulate and remains confused. My covid sx were pneumonia with fever and body aches. I survived despite my history of multiple comorbidities. My question is why should I subject myself to a "vaccine" for an illness that I now have immunity? I have had several family members who received the vaccine and each one had severe adverse reactions. Another Aunt developed fever, body aches , anorexia and confusion. CVA was ruled out. She is currently cared for in her home by her spouse . Other family members had cerebral blood clots / CVA sx with noted alteration of their platelets and left sided facial paralyses, and another was hospitalized with GBS. To date, the only explanation I have received as to why I should be vaccinated is Covid is an unknown and no one knows how long acquired immunity will last. My response is that no one knows how long the vaccine immunity will last.
I know that I will probably be frowned upon for my vaccine stance. Time will tell who is correct.

klone, MSN, RN · Jul 23, 2021

8 minutes ago, Sugarbear55 said:

My question is why should I subject myself to a "vaccine" for an illness that I now have immunity?

Is this a rhetorical question?

why did you put “vaccine” in quotation marks?

Sugarbear55 · Jul 23, 2021

No, it is a valid question. I have immunity. To understand why I placed quotes around the word in question, I refer you to the definition of the word.

macawake, MSN · Jul 23, 2021

1 hour ago, Sugarbear55 said:

I am a retired RN. I tested positive for Covid in April approximately 10 days after caring for an elderly Aunt who became ill on day two post vaccination. On day three she was admitted to the hospital with a dx of weakness, mental status change. She is now in an SNF and is effectively bedridden as she is too weak to ambulate and remains confused. My covid sx were pneumonia with fever and body aches. I survived despite my history of multiple comorbidities. My question is why should I subject myself to a "vaccine" for an illness that I now have immunity? I have had several family members who received the vaccine and each one had severe adverse reactions. Another Aunt developed fever, body aches , anorexia and confusion. CVA was ruled out. She is currently cared for in her home by her spouse . Other family members had cerebral blood clots / CVA sx with noted alteration of their platelets and left sided facial paralyses, and another was hospitalized with GBS. To date, the only explanation I have received as to why I should be vaccinated is Covid is an unknown and no one knows how long acquired immunity will last. My response is that no one knows how long the vaccine immunity will last.
I know that I will probably be frowned upon for my vaccine stance. Time will tell who is correct.

So you are claiming that each and every one of your family members have had serious adverse reactions from Covid-19 vaccines?

As long as we’re sharing anecdotes… Me and the approximately 120 coworkers on my unit (vaccine coverage more than 98%) have had zero serious adverse reactions. My family members and close relatives, about 30 people = zero serious adverse reactions. The friends I spend time with on a regular basis, about twenty people.. you guessed it.. zero adverse reactions. 100% of family and friends 18 years or older have recieved at least one dose, the majority are fully vaccinated. Plenty of peeps got injection site soreness and swelling. Many got a fever and/or myalgia. Many were fatigued. All these symtoms resolved within about 36 hours.

Have your family members all received the same type of vaccine? If everyone in your family actually got severe reactions you are statistical outliers to the extent that it’s bound to interest many clinicians and researchers. I suspect that you’d have to be one of the, if not the unluckiest family on earth for this to happen. Seriously, some of the serious side effects you describe are 1/100,000 or 1/1,000,000 events. We don’t have the exact numbers, but they are definitely in the neighborhood of very rare. We know that morbidity and mortality from a Covid-19 infection is many times higher.

I too wonder why you put quotations marks around the word ”vaccine”?

Ongoing research will tell us when it’s time to get a booster dose. My guess is that we in all likelihood will have to at some point in time. The only ”booster shot” available for a person who doesn’t want to get a vaccine, is to get a new infection when sometime in the future their immunity wears off. Pneumonia doesn’t sound like great fun and how do you know that you won’t have a more serious illness next time around, especially considering your comorbidities? Do you know if your infection was from the ”original” virus or one of the variants?

Sugarbear55 · Jul 23, 2021

I am not here to argue with you. I have immunity. I will deal with your worry about the next time when I get there. Please stop with the invalid arguments and explain to me why a person with immunity should take a non approved injection for an illness to which they have immunity. Please enclose references.
As to your quip about being the unluckiest family, I sincerely doubt that .

toomuchbaloney · Jul 23, 2021

15 minutes ago, Sugarbear55 said:

I am not here to argue with you. I have immunity. I will deal with your worry about the next time when I get there. Please stop with the invalid arguments and explain to me why a person with immunity should take a non approved injection for an illness to which they have immunity. Please enclose references.
As to your quip about being the unluckiest family, I sincerely doubt that .

You know a thing or two about invalid arguments, it seems. We don't need to explain a thing to you...you know everything that you need to know to have made your decision.

If you aren't the unluckiest family that leaves the real possibility that you aren't being straightforward about the vaccine experience.

Keep telling yourself that you aren't here to argue, but that isn't very credible either.