Retired firefighter Glen Midbo was enjoying a Budweiser on a recent afternoon while doing renovations on his house. His quiet suburban block on the southern tip of Staten Island is a stones throw from the beach. Standing under a flag of former President Donald Trump holding a machine gun, Midbo explained why he would be one of the last holdouts for the COVID-19 vaccine.
They came out with it too quick, said Midbo, 62, a resident of the mostly conservative, white and well-off neighborhood of Tottenville. I just want to make sure theres no side effects. I dont even feel threatened by this disease at all. I didnt even obey all the rules of this thingsocial distancing and masking and all thisand I didnt get sick.
On the opposite end of the island in Port Richmond, a neighborhood thats more than a third Latino, Selvin Vazquez Castillo expressed his own doubts about the vaccine. Ive read things on the internet that its caused people a lot of different reactions and has left people in the hospital, the 28-year-old construction worker said in Spanish. So, I said, Oh no, I dont want to be in the hospital.
Most barriers to accessing COVID-19 vaccines in New York City have come down, even on Staten Island, where theres no public hospital, and it took months of advocacy to open a city-run hub on the South Shore. But ongoing reluctance to get the shots has emerged as a key hurdle that New York, and the country as a whole, must overcome to control the pandemic. Pockets of unvaccinated people can continue to serve as a haven for the coronavirus, as evidenced by ongoing surges upstate in Lewis County and Cortland County. What is broadly deemed vaccine hesitancy encompasses a range of attitudes among people with myriad backgrounds, varying comprehension of health information and different levels of resistance.
No zip code on Staten Island is reporting more than 50% of residents with their first shot.
Reservations about the vaccineswhich are often, but not always, grounded in questions about their safety, according to Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) surveyscut across political and cultural divides. And that research shows different strategies will change peoples minds depending on why theyve delayed their shots so far.
To explore the ways in which hesitancy can manifest, WNYC/Gothamist headed to Staten Island, the borough thats home to the most Republicans in the city as well as the solidly blue, ethnically diverse North Shore with its enclaves of Latino and African immigrants.
Retired firefighter Glen Midbo stands under a Trump flag outside his house in Tottenville, Staten Island. Midbo says he will only get the vaccine if remaining unvaccinated limits what he can do. Caroline Lewis
Staten Islands vaccination rate39% fully inoculated, 45% with at least one dosefalls just below the citywide tallies of 40% and 49%, respectively. While other boroughs have neighborhoods with very high and very low levels of vaccine saturation, much of Staten Island hovers somewhere in the middle. No zip code is reporting more than 50% of residents with their first shot, as of May 21st.
Organizers on Staten Island who have been working on getting residents vaccinated over recent months shared some of the rationales they hear from the reluctant.
Among African immigrants in Stapleton, Park Hill, and Mariners Harbor, misinformation about the virus and vaccines is spreading via Facebook and WhatsApp, said Abou Sy Diakhate, co-chair of the Staten Island Immigrant Council and a board member of the Staten Island Long-Term Recovery Organization.
Videos went viral promoting the conspiracy theory that the vaccine is part of the plot to reduce the black race, said Diakhate. This is how they look at it. And they ask me this.
This is part of the institutional racism that we're talking about.
He added that people in the communities he serves dont tend to rely on American media for information, and some dont speak English. Like others who spoke to WNYC/Gothamist, Diakhate said he thought initial barriers to finding appointments or clinics exacerbated this hesitancy. Sometimes, when they lack access, they say, OK, you know what? It's fine. We are used to this. This is part of the institutional racism that we're talking about.
Although there is no longer a vaccine shortage and everyone older than 12 is eligible, Diakhate says he has yet to get a shot himself because he wants to let those who are more vulnerable go first.
An April survey of 1,007 people in the New York metro area90% unvaccinatedfound that most were not hardline anti-vaxxers. Only 4% said they would not get a COVID-19 jab for any reason. About two-thirds of those without shots65%said they were waiting for reassurance that no serious complications would result from the vaccines. So far, hundreds of millions of Americans have taken doses of Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines, and close monitoring has shown that they are overwhelmingly safe and effective. Long-term negative consequences are extremely unlikely.
Another 22.3% said they wanted to see how the vaccines affected other people. Nearly 10% said they preferred to let high-risk people have first dibs. The survey, conducted by the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, is yet to be published.
The only reason I'll take the vaccination is if it will let me go to my house in Norway.
Asked what would make them feel more ready, 15% of the unvaccinated respondents said they would value a recommendation from their doctor. The doctors office was also by far the preferred setting for a shot, favored by 39% of respondents. KFF surveys note similar findings on trusted messengers.
A lot of the people that we contacted from our Stapleton senior center said they're waiting until [the vaccine is] available in their doctor's office, and they're waiting for their doctor to administer it, said Allison Cohen, the communications director for the JCC of Staten Island, who also headed up the organizations massive vaccination effort at its locations across the borough.
So far, primary care doctors have not been selected as major providers of the COVID-19 vaccinesa policy that needs to change as the city moves toward reaching children and potentially offering booster shots, according to Dr. Scott Ratzan, a lecturer at the CUNY School of Public Health and executive director of CONVINCE USA, an organization promoting vaccine literacy. But Ratzan also acknowledged that the clinical setting people feel most comfortable in can also vary by demographic.
Michelle Molina, executive director of El Centro del Inmigrante in Port Richmond, says Latinos from other boroughs often come to her community center for COVID vaccinations because its a trusted organization among immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented. She has been encouraged so far by all the people who started out hesitant but are now taking the vaccines. The center provides a wide range of services, including a dispatch center for day laborers, allowing Molina to offer regular reminders about the shots.
Day laborers wait to be dispatched outside El Centro Del Inmigrante in Port Richmond, Staten Island. The center has gotten many immigrants vaccinated and helped some overcome their initial hesitancy. Caroline Lewis
We still have a lot of work to do as far as the parents, Molina said. A lot of parents will say, Yes, I wanted to get vaccinated, and I did. But my kids are a different story. I'm not willing to take that chance with my kids.
Vazquez Castillo, the construction worker, says he finally booked an appointment. But it took the recent deaths of three friends from COVID-19 and a referral from an acquaintance to El Centro for him to do it.
Before his friends passed away, Vazquez Castillo admits, I didnt believe in COVID. Even now, he has questions about how the vaccines work. One questionI have read online, but I'm not that sure because the internet is not 100% trustworthydo they put the COVID inside your body? Vazquez Castillo asked. (They dont.)
Community organizers talked about the need for more forums where people could pose clinicians all their questions, especially now that parents are deciding whether to give consent for their kids. Ratzan said he is working with employers to provide accurate, actionable COVID-19 information to their employees.
Nationally, the share of people who want to wait and see on the vaccines safety or how others react to it shrank during the first couple of months of the rollout, before plateauing between March and April, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Those putting off their shots for these reasons include about one in five Republicans, and roughly the same share applies to Black adults, Hispanic adults, and those without a college degree. A quarter of young adults between 18 and 29 also say theyre holding off.
Notably, while Republicans have been slower to seek vaccinations than Democrats, the share that is willing continues to increase. Each person who spoke to WNYC/Gothamist had different answers for what, if anything, would ultimately motivate them toward the preventative medicine.
A woman yells as New York City Sheriffs stand guard outside of the restaurant Mac's Public House at the start of a rally against state and city mandates to stop indoor dining to control the spread of the coronavirus in Staten Island, December 2nd, 2020. JUSTIN LANE/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Despite vowing to wait as long as possible, Midbo, the retired firefighter in Tottenville, said hed get inoculated if it was the only way to circumvent travel restrictions or other limitations on what he could do. The only reason I'll take the vaccination is if it will let me go to my house in Norway, Midbo said. If they won't let me in a restaurant or bar or something like that because I don't have the vaccine, OK, I'll do it.
Others said incentives based on mandates wouldnt help. I'm a Libertarian, said a Tottenville retiree named Bruce, who would only give his first name. I don't believe in government overreach, and I don't want to live in a nanny state. Still, he emphasized, hes not an anti-vaxxer; he merely wants to see more data on the vaccines. I hope we do reach herd immunity, he said.
Some sitting outside the Staten Island Mall Monday said the people they knew were mostly coming around to the idea regardless of their politics. But one woman, Marie Linea, 67, said she would not take a COVID shot under any circumstances, even if it meant she had to keep wearing her mask while others shed theirs. Linea rattled off several popular myths, including that the virus was man-made and that young people shouldnt get the vaccines because they can cause infertility. They're injecting stuff that is going to change your DNA, she said, which is also untrue. You're going to have problems down the line, you know, mentally.
Not everyone who didnt rush to get a shot right away has such clear-cut reasons. On Monday, Kurt Perkert, 62, a Port Richmond resident who maintains properties in the area, said he had recently booked his first appointment.
I've been procrastinating, he said. Im busy.
From his porch, Perkert hailed a friend passing by, Stanley Federowski, 67, who said he lives alone in West Brighton and doesnt plan to get vaccinated. Asked if he worried about COVID-19, Federowski said, No, I dont worry about nothing. I just do whatever I do and that's it. I don't even think about it. He said maybe if they were offering money, hed consider it. Governor Andrew Cuomo launched an initiative this week whereby state-run vaccine sites will give out free lottery tickets for a chance to win $5 million, following in the footsteps of Ohio.
The mayor and governor continue to plead with residents to capitalize on the free COVID-19 vaccines if they havent already, insisting its the way to restore normalcy and ensure everyones safety as businesses, schools, and entertainment venues reopen. But Olivia Drabczyk, a teacher who has done vaccine outreach during her run for City Council on Staten Islands South Shore, says some people are hearing mixed messages.
Seeing that, whether or not they've gotten [vaccinated], the city is still reopening, she said, has taken away some urgency for people who are already hesitant.
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Vaccine Hesitancy Greatest Hits: How Some Staten Islanders Are Overcoming The Reluctance - Gothamist