Just weeks before a COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be made available to U.S. medical workers and first responders, a firefighters' union internal survey taken by members of the country's largest fire department shows that more than 50% say they would not take it, mirroring what appears to be a nationwide hesitancy to get the shot.
The Uniformed Firefighters Association (UFA) survey of 2,000 members of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) showed that 55% of participants said they would not bother to get inoculated.
"As a union, we are encouraging our members to get the vaccine, but we are defending that right to make that choice,” Ansbro said at a news conference Sunday.
The FDNY has a total of nearly 11,000 uniformed employees, and Anbro said the survey results are likely indicative of the overall attitude among members of the department.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, emphasized the importance of convincing the majority of the U.S. population to get the vaccination during a COVID-19 press briefing with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday.
“When you have 75% to 80% of the people vaccinated, you have an umbrella of protection over the community, that the level of community spread will be really, really very low. The virus will not have any place to go," Fauci, who has been tapped to be President-elect Joe Biden's chief medical adviser, said. “If 50% of the people get vaccinated, then we don’t have that umbrella of immunity over us."
Ansbro said the reluctance among FDNY members to get the vaccine is generally fueled by a lack of information.
"The reasons for that are probably the same reasons everyone else doesn't want it: It is a new vaccine, they don't have enough information,” Ansbro said.
Two vaccines are within weeks of being released -- one by Pfizer and the other by Moderna. The pharmaceutical giants have requested emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to begin distributing the vaccines.
The FDA is set to review Pfizer's request on Thursday and Moderna's on Dec. 17. Both companies have announced vaccine efficacy rates of more than 90%.
The federal government's Operation Warp Speed has said there will be "shots in arms" within 24 hours of authorization.
Ansbro said the union plans to launch a program to educate fire department members on the vaccine in hopes of making them less reluctant to take it.
"That is going to be the hurdle the department and the union is going to have to overcome," Ansbro said.
FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro and FDNY Chief of Department John Sudnik issued an internal order last month that said the vaccination will not be mandatory to firefighters and emergency medical service workers, though it recommended that employees consider "the overall benefits" of getting vaccinated.
The results of the FDNY survey are similar to recent nationwide polls. A Gallup Panel survey, which was conducted in late October before Pfizer and Moderna released results about the likely effectiveness of their vaccines, found that 58% of Americans would be willing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, a decrease from July, when 66% said they would.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/half-nyc-firefighters-refuse-covid-19-vaccine-survey/story?id=74582249
