Use this search box to find articles that have run in our newspapers over the last several years.
Date: 10/12/2021
EASTHAMPTON – As vaccines are continuously pumped out, local health officials and epidemiologists are helping residents interpret vaccination data in a myriad of ways.
In Easthampton for example, local epidemiologist and college professor Megan Harvey is continuing to administer general data around the city’s COVID-19 cases, trends, and vaccination rate through the COVID-19 dashboard-which was first spearheaded by the city’s former public health nurse Amy Hardt. Each week, the dashboard has provided residents with an accessibly helpful snapshot of where Easthampton and Hampshire County are at regarding COVID-19.
As of press time, the last dashboard shows that a little over 70 percent of Easthampton and Westhampton residents are fully vaccinated, while 77 percent are fully or partially vaccinated. Go deeper into the data, and people will notice some age and racial discrepancies.
Currently, according to data provided by Mass.gov, those who are Asian, white, or who identify as multi-racial/ethnic in Easthampton have the highest vaccination rates – 69, 66 and 82 percent respectively. Folks in Easthampton identify as Black or Hispanic have lower vaccination rates at 52 and 55 percent, respectively.
According to Harvey, there are several reasons for why the Black and Hispanic communities have lower vaccination rates. One large reason is because those communities have a longstanding distrust in the medical system due to experimentation on Black bodies in the past, as well as general mistreatment from the health community.
“Access and cultural differences probably have something to do with it too,” said Harvey. “I think it’s a conglomerate of reasons.”
Because something like this is such a broad issue in the United States, not just in Easthampton, Harvey is not sure how racial discrepancies in vaccination data can be addressed in the city specifically. Broadly speaking, she believes that ending racist ideologies and presenting science in a transparent and trustworthy manner has to be a national goal. “I think the more that science can be transparent and honest, I think builds general trust,” said Harvey.
Outside of the racial discrepancies, Harvey noted growing age discrepancies in the vaccination data. For example, 20- to 29-year-olds in Easthampton have the lowest vaccination rate at 59 percent. The next lowest is 12- to 19-year-olds at 74 percent. All other age ranges eligible for the vaccine are above 70 percent for a vaccination rate, according to the Mass.gov data. It is interesting to note that, despite 12- to 15-year-olds being the most recent age group eligible for the Pfizer vaccine, they still have a higher vaccination rate than the 20-29 age group.
When asked why she thought this was the case, Harvey explained that there was an uptick in vaccinations for 12- to 19-year-olds about a month or two ago because school was about to begin.
“I also think with this 20 to 29 age group … they have the lowest risk of getting COVID, that’s real, that’s not perceived,” said Harvey. “But I also think there is a perceived low risk situation going on there.”
Within that perception, Harvey believes that there are many people in that 20-29 age group who feel that it is almost better to get COVID and receive natural immunity rather than receive the vaccine. “I’m not saying that’s true; I’m saying that’s one of the perceptions of that age group,” she added.
According to Harvey, the data locally and nationally reflects that the largest COVID-19 case growth has been in young adults and pediatric cases, but the most severe outcomes from the virus are occurring in elderly adults.
“Pediatric cases and young adults do tend to do better when they have infection, but that’s where our significant case growth is happening,” said Harvey. “It’s sort of like kindling for a fire…you can burn through really quickly if there are people infected and close together.”
Prior cases of COVID-19 carried distinct symptoms like cough, fever and loss of taste or smell. The delta variant, however, can sometimes only present common cold or allergy symptoms, making it very hard to distinguish between sicknesses.
“My message that I would say is that we have such good evidence that the vaccine is effective …at this point it is our best way of getting out of this pandemic - to vaccinate as many people locally and globally,” she added. “Hopefully, by November, 5- to 11-year-olds will be eligible to be vaccinated, but we’re still going to be waiting for our two 5-year-olds, and that’s a really vulnerable population too.”