Ohio Amish has not been vaccinated despite high COVID infection, death: Shot

Holmes County Health Department staff (from left) Michael Dare, Jennifer Torkington, and Abbey Benton prepare materials for the COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic in the St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Millersburg, Ohio on April 8. To do.

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Holmes County Health Department staff (from left) Michael Dare, Jennifer Torkington, and Abbey Benton prepare materials for the COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic in the St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Millersburg, Ohio on April 8. To do.

Anna Huntsman / WCPN

The Amish community in northeastern Ohio engages in textbook communal living. The family eats, works and goes to church together. And through the pandemic, wearing masks and social distance were uneven.This means what these communities have experienced Some of the highest infection and mortality rates in the state..

Nevertheless, health authorities are struggling to get vaccinated against their population. Holmes County, half of the population is Amish, has the lowest immunization rate in Ohio, with only 10% of the approximately 44,000 inhabitants fully vaccinated.

According to county health commissioner Michael Derr, less than 1% of Amish are unvaccinated.

To increase that number, health authorities are holding vaccination clinics in rural areas. They also contacted bishops and community leaders to disseminate information about vaccine safety. Still, most Amish residents do not appear in health clinics.

Born in Amish, Marcus Yoda, who lives in Holmes County, is now a Mennonite and is still closely associated with the Amish community. He says that the few Amish vaccinated are personally vaccinated through clinics and small rural clinics – and they keep it to themselves.

“There were Amish people who were vaccinated on the same day as me … and we all looked at each other, smiled under the mask and thought they wouldn’t say they saw them. “Yoda says.

He says he does not want to be vaccinated because many Amish are already infected with COVID-19 and believe that the area has reached herd immunity.

Another major driver is “misinformation about COVID itself-not as serious as the flu,” says Yoda, who runs the History Center for Amish and Mennonites. “They say,’Well, that didn’t affect me much. Look at all these old men who survived.'”

A man walking or cycling trails on a rainy day in Holmes County, Ohio, one of the largest Amish settlements in the United States.

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A man walking or cycling trails on a rainy day in Holmes County, Ohio, one of the largest Amish settlements in the United States.

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Some Amish residents are skeptical of the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. Vaccination conspiracy theories are also spreading throughout the community. There is also a lack of awareness of the more contagious variants across the country, Yoder says.

“Unfortunately, I think we’ll see a few more cases in our community because of this,” he says. “There’s just a lot of COVID news fatigue. They just don’t want to hear about it. That’s a real shame.”

Although some herd immunity can explain why Holmes currently has Low incidence of new cases, Health Department Derr is concerned that people who have previously been infected with the virus may not be protected.

“As a region, we definitely surged in the winter, and we know it happened about 90 days ago,” says Derr. “Because we haven’t been vaccinated enough, we’re ready and ready for the next surge.”

Health authorities in Indiana and Pennsylvania, together with Ohio, occupy the largest Amish community, but are also expanding outreach in areas with high Amish. The local health department in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, has the largest Amish population in the country and is in contact with Amish bishops to disseminate information about vaccines.

Widespread resistance to vaccination in the Amish community is not surprising to sociologists at West Virginia University. Rachel Stein, Studying the Amish population across the country.

“We, the non-Amish, are more involved in preventive medicine,” says Stein. “They certainly don’t have the idea that we need to do something to prevent this from happening.”

Instead, she says there is acceptance that people get sick and get better – or not. In recent years, childhood vaccinations have increased in the Amish community of Ohio, but adults are even more hesitant, she adds.

“Whooping cough often occurs in villages, but it’s like …” This is happening now. We’re in the whooping cough season, so it’s time to deal with this kind of thing, “she says.

In 2014, The measles outbreak spread rapidly throughout Ohio’s rarely vaccinated Amish community... Even after this experience, many Amish residents choose not to vaccinate their children for other illnesses.

Low interest in vaccination in Holmes County shows a national trend Rural residents are less likely to consider vaccination..

Recently Voting According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 3 out of 10 rural residents will “never” receive the COVID vaccine unless required.

Yoder believes that it is best to encourage vaccinated Amish residents to speak up about their positive experience of receiving injections.

“I don’t think hitting people with a mallet because they didn’t do that wouldn’t take us anywhere,” says Yoder. “Some of the local business leaders said,” See, get vaccinated. You don’t have to worry too much about social distance because you don’t have to wear a mask in the future. The future.’And they tact. And it was a healthy way to approach it. “

Holmes County Health Commissioner Derr is trying to encourage employers hiring Amish workers to encourage their staff to shoot. Authorities eventually want to host vaccine clinics in these businesses and take shots at them, but not all business owners have participated in it yet, he says.

“People will listen to their friends and family, the people they interact with more, and that will be the phone effect,” says Derr. “The more people we talk about it and the better they have, the more the language will spread.”

Derr hopes more Amish will be vaccinated in the fall after the shots last for a while, but is worried that the community could surge long before that.

This story comes from a partnership between NPR and Cleveland Idea stream And Kaiser Health News..