Page 4 - DMN1Q22

4 Detroit Medical News First Quarter 2022
Editor's Column
VACCINE MANDATES
By: T. Jann Caison-Sorey, MD, MBA
There is a lot of angst in the medical community
and beyond about mandates. There is a lot of support for mandates but on the other hand, many are
not in agreement and quite frankly are expressing
that they are fed up with mandates. Despite this disagreement however, mandates are very much a part of the messaging today as we all try to stay up to date knowledge-wise, absorb the impact of the covid variants and stay updated while working to keep our patients and ourselves as safe as possible.
The interesting part about all of this is that many of the mandates are temporary requirements and have a timeline that will expire or be altered/or renewed along an identified timeframe. Mandates can and often do include the federal government, the Supreme Court in certain instances, and they also may involve state, local, large and small company business decisions. As you can see there is lots of room for mandate variation to the point where it becomes quite confusing to say the very least. Do I wear my mask, do I social distance. should I go into the workplace or a restaurant, should I continue washing my hands as often as I did in the last two years,
am I okay with air travel and with potentially sitting in the dreaded “middle seat”?
I wanted to broaden my scope for this article, therefore I thought it would be prudent to reach out to some of my colleagues. Dr. Gaurav Sharma, one of my colleagues, felt it was important to review the vaccine hesitancy literature over a period of time in the U.S. to see if there was a change. Dr. Sharma recommended reviewing the chart from the Imperial College of London’s YouGov covid-19 Behavior Tracker Data Hub. The hub gathers global insights on people’s behaviors
in response to covid-19. This survey covers public behaviors and attitudes, ranging from mask-wearing to self-isolation, social distancing, symptoms and testing.
Charts can be great for telling a story. The chart below tracks changes in the U.S. from Feb 15 2021 through Oct 15 2021. The literature explores Attitudes to COVID-19 vaccinations – (Our World in Data). The chart shows monthly data from this survey on the willingness of people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. Survey respondents were presented with