Only about 18% of employees at the DeKalb County Police Department and 30% of employees at DeKalb County Fire Rescue have chosen to receive COVID-19 vaccinations, officials said Monday.
DeKalb police chief Mirtha Ramos, fire chief Darnell Fullum and public safety director Jack Lumpkin all said they have gotten their shots, and that they’re hopeful that department-wide numbers will continue to increase in coming weeks and months.
Public safety personnel and first responders — along with residents 65 years and older, their caregivers and employees of long-term care facilities — are among the group of Georgians currently eligible to receive vaccines.
But a relatively small share of personnel has accepted the offer to be vaccinated thus far, DeKalb officials said. And it’s a matter of reluctance and uncertainty, not limited supply.
“We are not an outlier with this issue,” Lumpkin said during a briefing with members of the DeKalb County Board of Commissioners. “Other public safety agencies in Georgia, particularly, are experiencing very similar situations in terms of vaccine hesitancy.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and other entities have determined the currently available COVID-19 vaccines to be safe and effective. But while many eligible Georgians scramble every day to secure coveted spots on the vaccination list, others have been more hesitant.
According to a recent poll conducted for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about one-third of adults in Georgia may be reluctant to take a vaccine. The main reasons people said they weren’t willing to be vaccinated were distrust of the health system and a desire to see how well the vaccine works, the poll found.
First responders aren’t immune to such concerns.
Ramos, the police chief, said 154 of her department’s 867 employees had chosen to receive the vaccine. In addition to questions about the vaccine itself, she said, it’s a matter of some folks “not believing in the possible consequences” of contracting the virus.
More than 13,000 Georgians — including 651 DeKalb County residents — had died from COVID-19 as of Monday morning.
Ramos did say that interest in the vaccine appears to be increasing, perhaps due to three police department employees recently being hospitalized with the virus.
“I try to keep my people informed, which is all we can do,” Ramos said. “We’ll definitely continue to encourage people to take the vaccine.”
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