‘The harder they push, the harder I’ve dug in’: The threat of getting fired still hasn’t persuaded some to get COVID-19 vaccine. How are resisters affecting the pandemic?
Wynne Lacey’s decision to skip the COVID-19 vaccine has come with consequences.
The mental health professional from Oak Park lost a job when her employer imposed a vaccine requirement. She has had to stay home when her husband and children, who have gotten their shots, go to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra or restaurants that require proof of vaccination.
And when she revealed her status late last year to fellow members of the Oak Park Board of Health, a panel that advises the village’s public health department, she received criticism she equates to a public shaming. A village trustee is now seeking to oust her from the board.
But the mandates and blowback haven’t shaken Lacey’s skepticism about the COVID-19 vaccines. And they definitely haven’t moved her any closer to getting one.
“People like me are pretty certain in our stance at this point,” Lacey said. “I was willing to get fired. I was willing to forgo many things to stay true to myself.”
Outreach workers are still scrambling to convince the unvaccinated to get their shots, and a long list of private businesses and government agencies have made it a condition of employment. But despite the pleas and the mandates, a significant group of Americans appears immune to persuasion.
Polling by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that since the vaccines became widely available, about 15% of adults have said they will “definitely not” get one. The percentage has stayed constant even as the nation’s COVID-related death toll has swollen to more than 900,000.
The Biden administration, meanwhile, saw its vaccination mandate for large employers turned away by the U.S. Supreme Court. Some companies that imposed their own backtracked after states limited such protocols. And 21 plaintiffs fighting Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s mandate for school employees recently won a court victory when a judge granted their temporary restraining order.
That leaves researchers to ponder the resisters’ impact on the pandemic. Dr. Yonatan Grad, an immunologist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, expects it will be straightforward.
“Until we see the spread of COVID-19 through that population so they get some degree of immunity from infection — though it’s better with vaccination — we’re going to see relatively higher numbers of (unvaccinated) people requiring hospitalization and all the impact that comes from that,” he said.
New rules
Vaccine resisters interviewed by the Tribune gave familiar reasons for their defiance. Contrary to the assurance of health officials, some said they believe the vaccines are ineffective or even dangerous, responsible for injuries and deaths the media and medical establishment have covered up.
Others, like Scott Troogstad, a captain in the Chicago Fire Department, have a philosophical objection to being forced to put something into their bodies.
“Once you do that, there are no more lines to be drawn,” he said. “Any time you declare an emergency, you can impose new rules.”
He was placed on unpaid leave in November after he refused to use a city website to reveal his vaccination status, something required by Chicago’s employee mandate. He is hopeful that arbitration undertaken by the Fraternal Order of Police will tilt the scales in favor of unvaccinated workers, but if it doesn’t, he said he’s prepared to retire.
Asked if the hardball approach made him more likely to get the shots, he laughed.
“You know the answer to that,” he said. “There’s absolutely nothing that anyone can do, especially at this point. The harder they push, the harder I’ve dug in.”
The city has also required people to show proof of vaccination before entering restaurants, health clubs and entertainment venues. Chicago officials credit that measure with boosting the city’s vaccination level, though they say it could be lifted in the weeks ahead if cases continue to drop. (There is no discussion of removing the employee mandate, they said.)
Many Illinois health workers have also been required to get the COVID-19 vaccine or face termination, and some are fighting it in court. Fourteen employees at NorthShore University HealthSystem have sued the hospital chain, saying their religious objections to the vaccine were unlawfully denied.
Attorney Horatio Mihet of the firm Liberty Counsel said 13 of those plaintiffs have now been fired — the one exception has been allowed to work remotely — along with dozens of others who aren’t part of the lawsuit. Some have not found other jobs and NorthShore is opposing their attempts to get unemployment benefits, he said.
A NorthShore spokeswoman said the hospital system does not comment on pending litigation.
The employees’ main objection is that the vaccines were developed or tested using cell lines from aborted fetuses, though some anti-abortion religious leaders such as Pope Francis still encourage their use. Mihet said while he knows of some workers who decided to get vaccinated rather than lose their jobs, most have stuck to their principles.
“These folks believe any association with abortion taints the vaccine morally, and that they would be sinning against God if they were to accept this vaccine,” he said.
‘Nothing more we can do’
Patricia Withers of the Illinois Vaccine Awareness Coalition, a group that advocates for “informed vaccine choice,” said that along with employment problems, people who have declined the shots have lost friendships and endured family turmoil.
She added, though, that they’ve also built social networks of like-minded people who advise one another on places to shop, dine or educate their kids where COVID vaccines won’t be an issue.
“We’re having to create a whole new, different society,” she said. “It’s just a survival instinct. If we can’t go here, we’ll have to create something new.”
James Colgrove, professor of sociomedical sciences at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, said while mandates are one of the most effective ways to increase vaccination, they’re usually accompanied by resistance.
He noted that measles outbreaks have occurred for decades even though every state requires children to be vaccinated against the disease. Convincing adults to get a vaccine for a new virus has proved to be an even greater challenge, he said.
“I think within health care, where mandates have been upheld (by the Supreme Court), we will see continued efforts to not let people off the hook,” he said. “As far as members of the general public, I do think we’ll reach a point where we’ll just say there’s nothing more we can do.”
A further complication is that mandates aren’t uniform across the country. When Gary Duszak, a former captain for the Chicago Fire Department, retired last year rather than enter his status in a city computer portal he distrusted, he promptly moved to a small town in Tennessee.
“There are no mandates here,” he said. “I can walk into a Lowe’s, I can walk into a restaurant. You can choose whether to wear a mask and there are no mandates that you have to show your vaccination status.”
Fewer than half the residents in his new home county are fully vaccinated, compared with two-thirds of Chicagoans. Saad Omer, director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, said such disparities promise to create “pockets of vulnerability” and prolong the pandemic.
But he added that even the most die-hard resistance might eventually soften. He pointed to Marin County, California, a longtime anti-vax stronghold that appears to have evolved during the pandemic: Nearly 90% of its population has been vaccinated against COVID-19, making it one of the leaders in the state.
“That gives you a little bit of hope,” Omer said. “If the dynamics change, (other communities) can get to that situation.”
Outlier in Oak Park
Oak Park isn’t far behind California’s wine country, with almost 80% of its population fully vaccinated. That makes Lacey an outlier, but she said it’s important for the board of health to respect alternative views.
Village trustee Dr. Susan Buchanan, a public health professor, doesn’t see it that way. She said Lacey has spread misinformation in her public statements and emails to fellow board members, including an assertion at one meeting that vaccines have injured people.
Lacey points to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database that compiles accounts of illnesses and deaths that allegedly occurred after vaccination. The CDC says the events are rare and aren’t necessarily caused by the COVID vaccines, which it calls safe and effective.
Buchanan said she has filed a complaint about Lacey with the village president, the first step in a process that could end with Lacey’s removal from the board.
“You do not have the right to membership on a public body that makes public health recommendations when your opinions are based on lies and they directly harm people,” Buchanan said.
Lacey had no response to Buchanan’s statement other than to call for a discussion she said village leaders appear uninterested in pursuing. She views that as condescension, and it has made her more determined than ever to stand firm.
“You’re looking at me like I’m less than you,” she said. “That doesn’t sit well with people who are confident and believe they are in charge of their lives.”
Twitter @JohnKeilman
