The Bay Area was a model of cooperation during the early years of the COVID pandemic, as residents sheltered in place, lined up for vaccinations and wore masks in public. Many locals looked on in amazement as health precautions became politicized in other parts of the country.
However, even in this conscious region, vigilance has not lasted. like another winter surge of COVID occupies the region, a large number of people are giving up masks AND bypassing the latest booster — a vital tool in preventing serious illness as immunity from previous injection or infection wanes.
Since the emergence of better vaccines and treatments for COVID—and the lifting of overt government measures like mask mandates—public access to coronavirus it is done more laissez-faire. Some call this approach “Think for yourself” pandemic era. But individual choices still take a heavy toll on vulnerable populations, such as the elderly and immunocompromised, some of whom are retreating from the public square.
Compounding the widespread apathy toward recent growth is considerable confusion about how to navigate this phase of the crisis. Experts say, in particular, that the introduction of the new bivalent vaccine booster – the first to target both the original coronavirus and the omicron family of variants – has been lukewarm. Without a strong marketing push and government resources devoted to distribution, many Americans are unaware of the booster’s benefits, or even of its existence.
“The situation is that people are left to decide as individuals,” said Denise Herd, a professor of behavioral sciences at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. “Without much information, without much support for some of these public health measures, we’ll see what we do now.”
To date, only 20.5% of eligible Californians have received the bivalent vaccine, leaving the majority more vulnerable to serious illness. California’s appropriation is higher than the national average of 14.6%, but still only a fraction of the 72.5% of people who received the initial two-dose vaccine series. The bivalent vaccine is authorized for Californians older than 6 months, depends on the when someone completed their initial two-dose series and when they last received the older “monovalent” booster.
Bay Area counties lead the California average in receiving boosters, but the percentage is still relatively low, ranging from 23% to 38% of the eligible population. This may be contributing to sharp increase in local cases of COVID in the past month and increase in hospitalizations that further tax a medical system already strained by outbreaks of influenza and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV.
“Pandemic fatigue” and confusion
Some pandemic fatigue is “natural, expected and real,” said Marin County Public Health Officer Matt Willis. He noted that the term has been used since 2020. Perhaps now, “we’re getting pandemic fatigue,” Willis said.
After all, the ability to self-regulate “is like a muscle that gets tired,” said Benjamin Rosenberg, a psychology professor at Dominican University of California. “Doing this risk calculation every time you go out is exhausting,” he said.
or the latest Chronicle poll found fewer Bay Area residents wearing masks to go to the supermarket, despite the current resurgence of COVID. Although it wasn’t a scientific study, the comments provided to reporters — people without masks said they “gave up” and wanted to “get on with life” — underscored the public health challenge of encouraging voluntary compliance.
It is easier to make healthy decisions when people have clear, reliable and accessible information, and when the decision itself is relatively easy to make. said Prof.
“This is no longer a scientific enterprise that we’re all following every week,” Schulman said.
Indeed, Rosenberg added, “other big-ticket items replaced COVID at the top of the list of things people want to read,” whether it’s inflation, layoffs, Ukraine, abortion rights, the Warriors or the weather. And there’s only so much bad news that’s healthy to absorb: psychologists have actually measured an increase in news-related stress, according to the American Psychological Association.
“Some people are literally running away from information about COVID. It’s almost like an ‘ignorance is bliss’ instinct,” Rosenberg said.
Declining attention is diminishing cooperation with public health efforts. A September survey found, for example, that half of the American public had heard “little or nothing” about the bivalent vaccine.
But tepid messaging and the lack of a massive marketing campaign share the blame, Schulman said. “We’re not putting nearly as much effort into this as we did into getting people to vote for somebody,” he said, referring to political ads during the midterm elections.
Information isn’t reaching the people who need it most, added Debbie Toth, CEO of Pleasant Hill-based nonprofit Choice in Aging. Seniors get their information mostly from radio and television news, and sometimes local newspapers. “I can tell you that older people don’t go to public health websites to look things up,” she said.
Lack of federal funds, mobilization
White House has acknowledged the confusion somewhat. But she has also blamed Congress for failing to authorize additional funding to support the coronavirus response.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control has delegated much of the response to the pandemic to state and local public health departments, which, in turn, say they are looking to the CDC for guidance, Prof. Seema Yasmin, an expert in science communication. .
“In the midst of that, you have hundreds of millions of Americans saying, ‘Who is responsible for what’s going on and what should I do?'” Yasmin said.
Resources are “really limited” without additional federal funding to do mass vaccination sites or other large campaigns, San Francisco Health Officer Susan Philip said.
Programs such as those that sent teams of people into nursing homes to vaccinate the elderly in 2021 have been curtailed or eliminated.
“It’s people with health insurance, with computers, with transportation options who can still really choose to get vaccinated or not,” said UC Berkeley’s Herd.
Some elderly and disabled people in question
The desire to return to “normal” life. could be stronger among young people, but they are also at lower risk. More than half of confirmed COVID cases in California are among those ages 18 to 49, according to the latest data from State panel on COVID-19. However, Californians older than 65 — who make up one-sixth of the population — account for nearly three-quarters of the state’s confirmed deaths.
Another group at increased risk of serious illness and hospitalization are people whose immune systems are compromised. As the masks come off and precautions melt away, disabled writer, speaker and model Charis Hill, who has the inflammatory disease ankylosing spondylitis, has gone into isolation for protection.
“The frustration of many people without disabilities is that they want to travel again,” Hill said. “My fatigue is that I just want autonomy over my life and daily living activities.”
A return to normalcy ignores that “normalcy has never been good for people with disabilities,” Hill said.
Some jurisdictions are now moving to reinstate limited regulations. Last week, the Oakland City Council reinstated a mask mandate inside publicly operated buildings after lobbying by groups such as Senior & Disability Action.
Director of Senior & Disability Action Jessica Lehman lamented the notion that COVID is not serious if mostly elderly and disabled people go to the hospital and die. It reinforces the idea that “elderly and disabled people are less important, less valued in society,” she said.
But most public health officials remain reluctant to endorse mask mandates. “We’re not going to force behaviors unless there’s a major change in the virus,” such as a more virulent strain that’s highly infectious, Willis said.
Possible solutions
In the absence of sweeping mandates or expensive marketing and advocacy campaigns, health experts see ways the general public can re-engage to help slow the virus and protect themselves.
“You change the environment to make the healthy choice the easy choice,” said Dr. Sara Cody, public health officer for Santa Clara County.
Simple measures can go a long way: offering free masks at building entrances or suggesting patients get the bivalent vaccine when they visit their doctor or go to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. The key is to get their attention “in the fleeting moment” they become motivated, said Rosenberg of the Dominican.
It could also involve a rebranding of the vaccine: If part of the pandemic fatigue stems from a sense of uncertainty, then “the vaccine itself is actually the cure because it makes you safer in every way,” said Willis of Marin County.
Added San Francisco’s Philip, “we need to reinforce the message that … it’s very effective at keeping people out of the hospital.”
Claire Hao is a staff writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: claire.hao@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @clairehao_
