With elections coming up, there is a lot of campaigning going on.
But none is as tough as the one the Kitsap Public Health District is facing. With all the misinformation, especially on social media, about COVID vaccines the past few years, many people stopped getting shots for any reason.
People lost trust in the KPHD, its public information officer, Tad Sooter, said at their board meeting Oct. 3. “We want to restore trust with decision-makers and households,” he said.
Sooter said the campaign will focus on letting people know where they can get accurate information about immunizations. “People don’t want to be told what to do,” he said.
Board member Drayton Jackson agreed the district shouldn’t try playing hardball, saying things like if your kids don’t get vaccinated they can’t go to school. “We’d make a lot more enemies than before.”
Sooter said they learned a lot during COVID, such as people trust their doctors more than the health district. So the campaign will include “trusted people in the community to share those messages. They’re (the public) open to hearing about those experiences. We’re reaching out to providers to participate in this campaign.”
KPHD Community Health director Yolanda Fong added, “Vaccines can reduce severe impacts caused by diseases. We want to increase access and awareness of immunization information.”
Fong said during COVID immunizations for children ages 19-35 months fell 28%. That explains the need to spread the word about reliable information, she said.
Sooter said it’s not all doom and gloom as 200,000 people in the county were vaccinated for COVID. “Our community believes in immunizations,” he said.
The campaign will start by sharing resources with adults. KPHD wants to see how the community accesses information.
Board president and Poulsbo Mayor Becky Erickson said it would be great if the district could reach kids directly by sending them the message that it’s “cool to get a vaccination.”
But Sooter said another thing they learned during the pandemic is, “People get very defensive” when you talk about their children “then shut down a little bit.”
Fong said they need to start with adults because as a mom of three she knows none of them will ask, “Mom can you take me to get my immunization?”
The district wants to partner with schools to spread the word like at Back to School events. They hope school nurses can help identify gaps in child immunizations. Because of a lack of children getting shots, kids are at a higher risk of getting measles than since the 1990s.
Board member Stephen Kutz said about school nurses: “We can’t back them into a corner. There are not enough school nurses. They already have way too much to do and too many schools to cover.”
COVID numbers
Also at the board meeting, Dr. Gib Morrow, the district’s health officer, said COVID numbers are at their highest levels since April. And that doesn’t even include home testing, which usually isn’t reported to the KPHD, he said.
Actually, despite the proliferation of cases, the district isn’t even asking people to report home test results unless it’s at a congregate facility.
Some board members were concerned about the lack of testing, and even recommended KPHD get involved in sharing costs.
Morrow said he encourages doctors to work with insurers regarding payment. “The general public should not have a cost associated with” getting a COVID vaccine. “It’s too bad. It was nice when 100 percent was provided by the federal government” and people could get help “without those negative financial repercussions.”
Sooter said the best place to look for a COVID vaccine is from your health care provider or a pharmacy. But Kutz said be careful when trying a pharmacy. “My wife made an appointment,” but could not get the shot “because they didn’t have enough staff. If that happens a couple of times people are going to give up.”
Morrow suggested that the rapid tests are not as sensitive at detecting smaller levels of the virus, and that flu vaccine rollouts are more gradual than previously. He said because of the cost some doctors aren’t getting as much as they were previously. “That’s been a deterrent.”
He said more should be available this fall, and if you’re going to a pharmacy call first to check on availability.
In other news
•Morrow said the KPHD’s Community Health Assessment is nearing completion. There was a data summit last week with 70 people attending. There will be open houses on the data over the next few weeks. “We want to hone in on strategies to make Kitsap better going forward.”
•Erickson said she has been hearing anecdotally that overdoses are increasing. “I want to make people aware of that,” she said, adding the district should provide stats on that monthly to the board. Morrow confirmed that overdose deaths are going up because of a stronger synthetic version of the drug fentanyl.
•County health administrator Keith Grellner said KPHD visited homeless camps recently and provided 26 people with hepatitis shots and 52 naloxone kits were distributed. He also said the KPHD audit was good, and it’s one of only five health districts nationwide that is accredited.
