Why do so many LAPD police refuse the COVID vaccine?Politics, Conspiracy Theory, Distrust, Chief Says – Daily News

Only about half of Los Angeles Police Department employees received at least one vaccination to protect them from COVID-19, police chief said Tuesday.

That rate is far behind the general public — as of last week, 67% of LA County residents took at least one dose, according to the latest figures from the Public Health Service. At least 58% were completely vaccinated.

And LAPD was late Despite employees having preferential access to vaccine reservations for several months — In January, there were some shots left by the LA city firefighters who accessed the earliest — before most people signed up.

But why are LAPD police and civilians not vaccinated? According to LAPD Chief Michel Moore, for the same reasons as many other Americans: politics and false alarms.

“When asked’why’, the main issues we hear are the speed at which this vaccine was developed and the political weaponization of this pandemic,” Moore told reporters Tuesday afternoon. ..

“On the other side, the polarization of how this vaccination was armed, criticism from conspiracy theorists who believe that (COVID-19) is a hoax, vaccines are a longer-term risk to people than the pandemic itself. Bring. “

Other public security and health leaders are also struggling to vaccinate their employees. Only about half of LA firefighters are vaccinated against COVID. Some polls by health care workers have shown that the degree of hesitation in vaccines is even greater, Moore said.

Due to its sluggish rate, some officials are asking if the city should consider requiring civil servants to be vaccinated.

“We can claim that we are endangering the people,” William Briggs, a member of the LA Police Department, said at a public meeting on Tuesday.

Briggs, a long-time LA-based entertainment lawyer who joined the committee last December, asked the city’s law firm to investigate whether the agency could begin delegating vaccines during the meeting. I asked.

He questioned that the LAPD had so many unvaccinated employees that it violated workplace safety requirements. And he said there were many reports and images of police officers in public without masks, as the department demanded.

January survey showed Serious vaccine repellent Among LAPD employees: about one in five said they would not receive the vaccine. Another one-fifth said they would be vaccinated, but first needed more information.

Nine LAPD employees have died of COVID-19 since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Moore shares statistics on immunization rates for executives and civilian employees at weekly committee meetings over several months. During his report on Tuesday, he admitted that vaccinations were slow, but he did not give the latest numbers until prompted by Briggs’ comments.

Moore also continued to share more numbers tracked by the LAPD. 65% of employees are protected from the vaccine.

However, that number includes both vaccinated employees and thousands of employees who test positive for the coronavirus. As of last week, a total of 2,705 of the approximately 12,100 swearers and civilian employees were virus-positive, according to the number of chiefs.

Moore claims that these employees still have antibodies in the system and can prevent the virus from recurring to some extent.

The latest research confirms the long-term protective properties of antibodies. Studies by Nature and BioRxiv have shown that the immune system of subjects infected with the coronavirus still produces antibodies that can fight in response to new infections. According to the New York Times..

However, More research needs to be done: Despite strong evidence that the antibody lasts for a long time Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on its website Science still states that it is not possible to say for sure “how much protection the antibody provides, or how long this protection lasts.”

According to a report on bioRxiv, a bioresearch site where scientists share their research before being peer-reviewed, the most protected are those who have obtained the coronavirus and later vaccinated it. And it is not yet known if the antibody provides adequate protection against all COVID-19 mutants.

Commissioner Maria Lou Calanche asked the LAPD to return numbers that indicate immunization rates across different employee groups. Police officers on patrol, who have a lot of direct contact with the public, are at greater risk of infecting others than private employees who may work in the back office.

Moore did not say whether he would consider the mission on Tuesday, but said such rules should apply equally to various agencies, including fire departments and medical institutions.

Still, he expressed concern that about one-third of his sector would not be vaccinated in the foreseeable future.

“It’s quite a few because one-third of our tissues aren’t vaccinated,” he said. “This is the real risk of losing another member of this organization due to this pandemic.”