For Community Board 7 (CB7), reaching vaccine-hesitant veterans in the Bronx has been one of the Veterans’ Affairs committee’s top concerns. Their conversation continued at their most recent committee meeting held on Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021.

 

Helene Redd is the committee’s newly appointed co-chair and said vaccination is a big issue because a lot of veterans are objecting to it. “How do we reach these people?” she asked. (For details of the other Bronx CB7 committee members, click here.)

 

While the COVID-19 landscape has shifted substantially from the early days of pandemic when refrigerated trucks were lined up outside hospitals, to approved vaccines now being widely available in New York City, the coronavirus and specifically, the Delta variant, still pose a looming threat.

 

It’s a grim reality that was brought sharply into focus on Friday, Oct. 1, when the United States surpassed 700,000 coronavirus deaths, the majority of which have been among the unvaccinated.

 

According to COVID-19 data recorded by the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA), at least 18.6 percent of veterans have been fully vaccinated at a VA facility. This number does not include veterans who have been fully vaccinated outside of the VA system.

 

Locally, the VA estimates that a mere 9,187 veterans have been fully vaccinated at the Bronx V.A. Hospital, the James J. Peters Department of Veterans’ Affairs Medical Center, despite it being among the first centers to offer vaccines to veterans, on or around Feb. 12, 2021, and not too long after the vaccines first became available, as reported.

 

It’s unclear how many of the 9,187 veterans vaccinated at the center were Bronxites, and the VA doesn’t have data on Bronx veterans who may have been vaccinated elsewhere.

 

According to the Pew Research Center, there are around 19 million veterans in the United States and the NYC Department of Veteran Services (DVS) estimates that the Bronx is home to over 25,000.

 

One of these is Johnny Hall Jr., a 61-year-old, life-long Bronxite and veteran who served in the Army National Guard from 1982 to 1988. Unlike the COVID-19 vaccine-hesitant population, who are opposed to getting the jab, Hall said he desperately wants it. However, an apparently severe, allergic reaction he had to vaccines he received when he first enlisted in 1982 is driving his hesitancy.

 

“One of the vaccines they gave me, I got a very, very bad reaction to it. It blew both of my legs up, tremendously,” Hall told Norwood News in a phone interview. “I never did take no shots after that. Subconsciously, it really bothered me.”

 

Without the COVID-19 vaccine, Hall, who said he also has asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), said he’s afraid to go outside, acutely aware that catching the virus with his underlying conditions could lead to hospitalization, and even death.

 

“I can’t go nowhere because I may catch COVID,” Hall said. “I don’t want to make bad decisions. I don’t want to die.” Hall told Norwood News that he has requested his military vaccination records from the VA. By doing so, he hopes to find out what prompted the apparent, allergic reaction he experienced in 1982.

 

With that information, Hall plans to let his primary doctor decide whether his body can handle the COVID-19 vaccine. However, he said he doesn’t know how long it will take to receive his records. “It could be a year from now, or six months from now,” said Hall. “Meanwhile, I’m in desperate need of the COVID-19 shot.”

 

Vaccine hesitancy is something nurse practitioner (NP) and Army Nurse Corps veteran, Luner Graham, 62, comes across in both the civilian and in the veteran communities she serves at the Union Community Health Center (UNION) in the Bronx.

 

In addition to primary and urgent care services, UNION offers tailored health care support to veterans and their families through its veteran liaison program. To reach vaccine-hesitant veterans, Graham’s experience as a former social worker and veteran has taught her that it works to take a therapeutic approach. “I can tell you one thing about veterans; they need to talk,” Graham told Norwood News. “They need someone to listen to them. They have to do things that normal people wouldn’t have to do.”

 

She continued, “For example, when we are out there in the field, you know, we have mock training for war. They’re doing difficult training in the cold and the snow and the rain; it doesn’t matter. [They] just have to suck it up and keep on. They have to be tough.”

 

Graham also stressed the importance of post-vaccine support, saying for some veterans, it isn’t the vaccine that scares them, it’s the jab’s potential side effects. “It’s scary when you take a vaccine, right? You get a fever, and you get body aches, you get bone pain. Basically, you feel like you’re dying,” said Graham. “And if you don’t have a supportive family to tell you you’re going to be alright, it’s scary.”

 

As previously reported, vaccination rates in the Bronx are the lowest of all five boroughs, and vaccine hesitancy in communities of color, in particular, may be attributable in part to historical gross injustices suffered by communities of color during early medical studies. During the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, from 1932 to 1972, U.S. public health service employees recruited poor, uneducated African American men with syphilis and watched them die avoidable deaths over time, even after a cure was found.

 

When it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine, today, of course all types of people have been vaccinated to date, irrespective of race, with priority having been given initially to healthcare workers and the elderly. As per the latest data from NYC Department of Health & Mental Hygiene, vaccination rates in the Bronx are highest among the Asian/HPNI community at 68 percent, followed by Hispanic / Latino community at 54 percent, and then the White community at 54 percent, and the Black community at 47 percent.

 

Meanwhile, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 4 percent of the population of the Bronx are Asian, 3 percent are Native American, over 54 percent are Hispanic or of Latinx origin, 45.8 percent are White, over 43 percent are Black or African American, and over 3 percent are mixed race.

 

Today, across the borough, only 58 percent of Bronxites are fully vaccinated as of Oct. 10, compared to 73 percent of Manhattanites, according to data from the City’s health department. Meanwhile, medical experts say a 90 percent vaccination rate is now needed to curb the Delta variant threat.

 

Bronx CB7’s next veterans’ affairs committee meeting will be held virtually on Tuesday, Oct. 19, at 6:30 p.m.

 

*Síle Moloney contributed to this story.

 

Editor’s Note: Get the facts about the COVID-19 vaccines at these sites:

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-vaccine-facts.page

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/about-covid-19/caring-for-children/families.html