Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

How eager will Las Vegans be to take coronavirus vaccine once it hits market?

clinical

Ted S. Warren / AP

In this March 16, 2020, file photo, a patient receives a shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.

Las Vegas health officials are confident they’ll be prepared to rapidly administer an eventual coronavirus vaccine. They are less confident that people will take it.

The reasons range from general anti-vaccine fears to specific concerns about the rapid development and politics surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Every year we have to educate the public about the value of the influenza vaccine. Every year we face the same issue of multiple individuals or groups that are part of the anti-vaccine movement,” said Dr. Fermin Leguen, acting chief health officer for the Southern Nevada Health District.

“We don’t expect COVID to be different from previous experience,” he said.

Pharmaceutical companies are scrambling to make a coronavirus vaccine, with several in the later stages of testing.

Typically, it can take years to develop a vaccine, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised governors to prepare to administer shots as soon as Nov. 1.

Dr. Johan Bester, a bioethicist and professor at UNLV’s medical school, said people must be confident the vaccine is safe, necessary and effective.

“The thing to keep in mind, we probably have one shot to roll out a vaccine, and we have to do it properly,” Bester said.

But the race for a vaccine has become politically charged.

President Donald Trump is in the midst of a reelection campaign where the virus has become front and center.

Trump has defended his handling of the pandemic, but his critics, including Democratic challenger Joe Biden, have harshly criticized him for not taking bolder action and downplaying the threat of the virus.

Trump has said a vaccine could start being distributed as early as October, while some medical experts caution the timeline could be well into next year.

Clear evidence of safety is nonnegotiable, Bester said. If people lose trust, it could be difficult to regain it, he said.

And politically fueled skepticism only adds to the dynamic, he said.

“I hope that politics can be set aside,” Bester said. “We’ve lost that with masking, for example. Masks have become politicized. I hope that the vaccine does not become politicized.”

Some people — many Trump supporters among them — resist wearing masks, seeing them as a symbol of oppression or citing unfounded health risks.

A district spokeswoman said SNHD could utilize some of its existing partnerships for regular flu vaccine clinics to distribute the COVID-19 immunization. SNHD is in preliminary discussions as it reviews the federal vaccine plan and couldn’t provide specifics when questioned by the Sun.

However, mass vaccination programs are part of the agency’s overall preparedness plans. It implemented such a plan during the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic, which it has refined since then.

According to Sun reporting at the time, SNHD received its first shipment of swine flu vaccines, a limited initial run of 28,000 doses, in October 2009, about six months after the then-novel flu strain appeared in the U.S. Those immunizations, in nasal spray form, were the first round in what was planned to be weekly vaccine deliveries and targeted to generally healthy younger adults and children. An injectable vaccine for people at greater risk followed shortly thereafter.

These groups received priority.

On Sept. 14, Gov. Steve Sisolak signed an emergency regulation to help expedite administering a coronavirus vaccine once available by authorizing trained pharmaceutical technicians to give immunizations under the direct supervision of a pharmacist, a force multiplier for care providers.

In June, the Nevada Department of Health and Human Services released a manual stating a goal of establishing an infrastructure to manage an 80% vaccination rate statewide once COVID-19 shots are available. The proposed $2.4 million strategy identifies the need for about $70,000 to add seven trailers to the fleet of mobile clinics, $200,000 to expand existing immunization tracking technology, $870,000 for dedicated program staff, primarily in Las Vegas and Carson City, and $1.3 million for a media campaign.

Representatives from DHHS did not immediately respond to requests for updates on how close the state is to reaching its goal.