“Ask Anything” about the Vaccine in Your Department
Mitz DeSouza, SHARE Member and X-Ray Technologist at Marlborough Hospital, received one of the first doses for caregivers at UMass Memorial. Read more . . .
Now that employee vaccine appointments are available through Employee Health again, SHARE members who haven’t gotten the COVID vaccine may want to get more of their questions answered. If you want an expert to come answer all the questions you and your co-workers have, let SHARE know. We would be happy to help arrange it.
SHARE and SHARE Executive Board Member Deb Clark recently worked with management to set up an “Ask Anything” session for the CDU at University. Dr. Stuart Levitz, Infectious Disease specialist, spent an hour answering questions with the SHARE members and co-workers. “It was very informative. He was willing to answer all questions, and he was very easy to speak to,” says Deb. She added that they could ask him anything at all.
SHARE’s goal is to get information to SHARE members, so that they can make an informed decision about whether they want to get the vaccine or not.
Learn More
Whether we’ve been vaccinated or not, many of us continue to have questions and concerns about the new COVID vaccines. Their development has been, in some ways, unlike anything we’ve seen before. Plus, as Dr. Torian Easterling, New York City’s Deputy Commissioner and Chief Equity Officer puts it, “after decades of racist disinvestment and medical mistreatment, Black and Latino communities have every reason to be skeptical.” And furthermore, it can be difficult to sort through misinformation.
One of the most informative (and witty) presentations to take on the most common questions about the vaccines can be found in this video from Hello Black America! with W. Kamau Bell & Black Health Care Workers. You can also check out CovidActNow for a comprehensive FAQ. SHARE continues to round up information, too, in blog posts marked #Covidvaccine and on Twitter.
How to Get Help — and Help Others — to Get Vaccinated
Massachusetts residents who already qualify for the vaccine can get help booking their appointments. (You can also visit that site to volunteer to help.)
Even if they aren’t eligible yet, Massachusetts residents can pre-register and be in line for the vaccine at a state-run site when the shot does become available to them.
·For those who are fully-vaccinated, the CDC has issued this guidance
Geeky and beautiful and scary all at the same time, this Animation of SARS-CoV-2 Entry into Human Host-Cell is pretty neat.
Where Is COVID Research Headed?
MassLive reports that, right here, “UMass Medical School has been working to sequence COVID viral samples in-house to track the presence of variants in Worcester County. A large number of cases of the U.K. variant confirmed in Massachusetts earlier this year were first discovered in Worcester County.”
Meanwhile, medical science continues to identify more symptoms and learn more about “long Covid. ” For a deep dive into the variants we know about, the potential for others, and what we can do about them, check out this America Dissected podcast.
The COVID Vaccine at UMass Memorial
As of now, roughly two-thirds of UMass Memorial’s employees have received the COVID vaccine. Simultaneously, employee COVID rates have plummeted: for many days in recent weeks, no new cases have been reported among caregivers; fewer than twenty employees are currently on leave due to the disease. UMass Memorial leaders and infectious disease experts also tell us that those caregivers who recently became ill with COVID were unvaccinated. Thankfully, the evidence continues to build that the vaccine can live up to its promise.
Taking Care of Each Other
We know that, when it comes to the vaccines, there’s a risk/benefit comparison for each of us to make, and the calculations aren’t the same for everyone. We encourage all SHARE members to keep informed, reach out with questions or concerns, and keep doing a brilliant job taking care of patients and one another.