How to make the elderly willing to vaccinate?
Since November, 4 deaths from new coronary pneumonia have been reported in Beijing, all of whom are elderly people.
In the local epidemics that have occurred in many places before, the elderly are the most vulnerable group in front of the new crown.
As the transmission of the mutant strain increases, the elderly cannot completely isolate the virus even if they live in secluded places.
From a medical point of view, vaccination is the most effective means of preventing severe illness or death after infection.
What is worrying is that the status of the vaccination of the elderly is still not optimistic.
Lack of knowledge about vaccines, worries about exacerbating underlying diseases, and being intimidated by coincidental reactions... These are all "obstacles" to further increase the vaccination rate of the elderly.
Experts believe that it is necessary to further strengthen the intensity and meticulousness of science popularization, increase the openness of the adverse reaction detection system, and improve vaccination accident insurance.
At the grassroots level, services such as mobile vaccination teams and caring shuttle buses have been launched to increase the accessibility of vaccines.
Winter is coming, has your elderly been vaccinated?
Most of the deaths were elderly
Who are the most vulnerable groups in the face of the new crown?
On November 23, an 87-year-old person infected with the new crown died in Beijing. This is the fourth death in Beijing since November.
Integrating official medical information, it can be found that the commonality of the four people is that they are all very old people: two people are 87 years old, one person is 91 years old, and one person is 88 years old. ,pneumonia.
Similar situations have occurred in local epidemics in many places.
At the beginning of this year, the large-scale epidemic in Hong Kong spread to nursing homes, and a large number of elderly deaths occurred; on March 18 this year, Jilin Province added 2 new local deaths, both of whom were over 60 years old and had serious underlying diseases; In late March, the relevant person in charge of the Shanghai Municipal Health and Health Commission stated that as of April 25, there were 190 deaths in Shanghai, with the youngest being 33 years old and the oldest being 101 years old, with an average age of 82.52 years, and deaths over 70 years old accounted for 86.32% of the total. .
Twelve of the dead cases had been vaccinated against the new crown vaccine, and the rest were not vaccinated.
In the epidemic, the first to bear the brunt is undoubtedly the elderly.
Yu Wenzhou, chief physician of the Immunization Planning Center of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, once said that among the total number of cases, the proportion of cases in the elderly population is lower than that of the young population, but once the elderly are infected, the risk of severe illness and death is much higher than that of other populations. According to the analysis of several epidemics, 90% or even more than 95% of the deaths were elderly people over 60 years old.
Reducing mobility and improving the protection level of elderly care institutions are effective attempts to prevent infection of the elderly, but they cannot completely isolate external risks.
Yu Wenzhou said that the elderly who do not have vaccination contraindications are encouraged to receive the new crown vaccine as soon as possible, and if they have met the conditions for enhanced immunization, they should also receive a booster shot as soon as possible.
Vaccination of the elderly group is not optimistic, there are still multiple doubts
However, the vaccination status of this group most in need of vaccination is not ideal.
Chang Jile, deputy director of the National Bureau of Disease Control and Prevention, recently introduced that 228 million people over the age of 60 in my country have been vaccinated for the whole process, and the number of people covered and the number of people who have been vaccinated accounted for 90.65% and 86.38% of the population over the age of 60, respectively; The vaccination rate is 65.7%, and the number of booster vaccinations accounts for 40% of the total number of people over the age of 80. The vaccination rate is not very high.
What prevents older populations from getting vaccinated?
The head of the immunization department of a CDC in a district in Beijing told reporters that the physical condition of the elderly is more complicated, and there are many underlying diseases. Some of them suffer from diseases that are contraindications and are not suitable for vaccination; some people do not understand the role of vaccines. , unwilling to be vaccinated; there are also some people who are more sensitive to health, have a coincidence reaction (produce symptoms unrelated to the vaccine) after being vaccinated, and attribute it to the vaccine, and are unwilling to continue to vaccinate.
In fact, the underlying diseases that the elderly worry about are precisely one of the reasons why they should be vaccinated as soon as possible.
Yu Wenzhou explained that a large proportion of the elderly have one or more chronic diseases. After being infected with the new coronavirus, their risk of developing severe illness and death will increase several times or even dozens of times; It can exacerbate the symptoms of some chronic diseases.
Common underlying diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes are risk factors for severe illness and death from COVID-19.
If infected with the virus, it will make the symptoms of the original chronic disease more severe or more prone to complications.
Regarding the coincidence reaction, the person in charge of the above-mentioned immunization department said that more than 90% of the people in my country have been vaccinated against the new crown vaccine, and almost everyone has been vaccinated. Therefore, due to personal health factors, symptoms will also occur without vaccination. It is easy to associate these symptoms with vaccines.
Regarding the view that the elderly live in seclusion and do not need to be specially vaccinated, the disease control department has repeatedly explained that although the elderly seldom go out, family members, visitors, and caregivers all have the opportunity to be infected with the virus, and the virus has not been "isolated".
And this also means that even if the flow is reduced and daily protection is increased, the risk of infection for the elderly still exists as the transmission and concealment of mutant strains increase.
Innovative multi-regional service initiatives increase the convenience of vaccination
How to make the elderly willing to vaccinate?
In September of this year, China CDC Weekly published an article entitled "Perspectives: Promote COVID-19 Vaccination for Older Adults in China", which suggested that the elderly should be given priority and emphasis as the vaccination population.
Suffering from chronic diseases will not cause additional side effects of vaccines, and there is no evidence that vaccination will affect the control of chronic diseases. Therefore, the elderly with chronic diseases should be encouraged to actively vaccinate.
The person in charge of the above-mentioned immunization department said that although the science popularization of the new crown vaccine is carried out from time to time, it still needs to be strengthened, especially to make the science popularization and interpretation more detailed and easy to understand.
In addition, the article also recommends improving the surveillance system for adverse events in vaccination.
The domestic AEFI surveillance system is limited to reports from vaccination clinics, medical institutions, CDCs, and vaccine manufacturers, and is not open to the public.
In contrast, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) in the United States accepts reports from the public.
my country should regularly collect public reports on adverse events of vaccination and publish data regularly to effectively reduce public concerns.
In addition, in addition to the basic insurance against vaccination adverse events, additional vaccination accident insurance may be a way to address the concerns of the elderly about the safety of the new crown vaccine.
Internationally, there are two forms of compensation for serious adverse events related to the new crown vaccine: one is that commercial insurance companies act as insurers, and the other is that the government pays compensation.
In our country, although commercial insurance companies have designed additional insurance for the prevention of adverse vaccination events, the public needs to pay the premiums themselves, and some do not accept insurance for the elderly.
A domestic survey of the elderly and their family members found that among the people who are hesitant about whether to get the new crown vaccine, if the government provides subsidized additional insurance, 51% of them will increase their willingness to get vaccinated.
This result shows that the government can help the elderly pay insurance premiums, which can increase the vaccination rate of the new crown vaccine.
It is also worth mentioning that improving the accessibility of vaccines is also an important measure.
The reporter learned that various regions in Beijing have introduced many innovative measures in this regard.
For example, Daxing District, Fengtai District, Shijingshan District and other places have used vaccination vehicles and shuttle buses to reduce the burden on the elderly; Mentougou District has set up mobile vaccination teams to promote vaccination in villages in mountainous areas.
There are also places where vaccine hotlines have been set up to arrange for medical staff to answer citizens' questions.
With the arrival of winter, the epidemic is not over yet, and the daily number of infected people in Beijing has exceeded 4,000.
I hope that more elderly people will let go of their worries and get vaccinated in time.
Beijing News reporter Dai Xuan