A recent COVID outbreak in Canada pointed to a problem that also exists in America. Two women in an Ottawa homeless shelter tested positive for COVID-19 and ended up causing an outbreak there. They didn’t actually get infected at the shelter; they contracted the disease at the long-term care facility where they both worked. Unable to afford housing, they inadvertently helped spread the disease within a vulnerable community.
People have paid much attention to the failures of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities during the pandemic. Deaths among elderly in such homes account for more than one-third of all COVID-19 fatalities, making both patients and care aides a top priority for vaccinations. Unfortunately, some long-term care aides are refusing to take part during the first round. In states like Ohio and North Carolina, there are reports that half or more of staff in long-term care facilities are refusing the vaccine.
Why would COVID-exposed minority workers refuse vaccination? Answers vary, but the bottom line is they fear being used as “guinea pigs” for a vaccine that the news tells them has been developed in record time. This fear of being experimented on isn’t without basis. From the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, to problems with systemic health care mistreatment, to an indifference to the vulnerability of some minority populations like Native Americans, American society has visibly failed to adequately protect and treat minority populations. Just this morning, The New York Times profiled how COVID is ravaging Native Americans in North and South Dakota (two the most heavily impacted states in the nation on a per capita basis), stripping communities of elders who are the repository of their language and history. It’s useless for the health system, employers, and the government to say “trust us” to these communities when trust has been and continues to be badly broken.
One way of building trust with minorities and frontline workforces is to take tangible steps toward matching our “essential worker” rhetoric with wage and benefit policies that improve their economic status. It shouldn’t be necessary for the men and women who care for our parents and grandparents to live on the edge of poverty. President-elect Biden has made improving education, training, and wages for such workers a key feature of his human capital development strategy. This will be an expensive challenge to tackle, but if we are going to honor our fathers and mothers — and prevent poverty among these key full-time workers — it must be addressed.
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