A year of struggle trying to get the community vaccinated

Local health care has seen a great deal of change in the last year as vaccination for COVID-19 continues throughout the community and booster shots roll out while the system is strained by the latest surge of COVID-19.

Northern Montana Health Care Director of Infection Prevention Alysia Mosness has spearheaded much of hospital's efforts to vaccinate as much of the community as possible, and in that respect it has been a very unusual and ever-shifting year of work.

"Interesting is, I guess, is a word you could use," Mosness said.

When the vaccine first became available, health care had to limit eligibility as demand far outstripped supply, she said, and that situation made for a chaotic time at Northern Montana Health Care.

"There were a lot of weekends, nights, changes seemed to happen every day," she said.

At the hospital, Mosness said, between keeping track of staff health, adjusting to the lack of visitors and the almost daily consideration of how best to keep people there safe, health care has become a difficult profession especially during the latest surge of COVID-19 hospitalizations.

"Every day has created a different normal for us in the health care world," she said.

She said this summer it seemed like things had a chance of becoming a bit more normal, but recent months saw that hope evaporate as more and more people came in with COVID-19.

"This fall has been back to square one," Mosness said.

While the hospital saw a jump in demand for vaccines after the delta variant began spreading, she said, demand overall has dropped off significantly since earlier this year. Now health care has all the vaccine it requires and demand is what needs to be created, she said.

She said this has been frustrating and disheartening, as the statistics plainly show how much the vaccine has helped, with the unvaccinated making up the vast majority of those overrunning hospitals like Northern Montana Hospital.

For patients, the flood of COVID-19 has the potential to jeopardize health care workers' ability to care for everyone else, Mosness said.

Everyone needs to go to the hospital at some point, she said, so everyone can be affected by this surge.

On the worker's side, Mosness said, this surge has necessitated that hospital staff work long hours with more and sicker people than last year, keeping workers away from their families and affecting their lives significantly.

She said the perception of their profession has also changed for the worse over the past year, as opposed to last year when public support seemed almost universal.

She said there are still many in the community who are supportive, but more and more people seem to view them negatively, which has affected her fellow health care workers as well.

Sometimes, people wait outside the hospital to pass out anti-vaccination propaganda to nurses after their shifts, Mosness said.

She said medical misinformation is something people in her profession have had to deal with for a very long time, since long before the pandemic.

However, she said, what's uniquely challenging with COVID-19 misinformation is how those who've come to believe it are seemingly immune to evidence, unavailable to be persuaded no matter how much data is presented that contradicts and disproves what they been convinced of.

Mosness said she holds social media responsible for much of the propagation of this misinformation, despite her enjoyment of it personally.

She said she likes social media like most people and, as long as someone knows how to discern the credibility and accuracy of sources, it can be used to spread good information quickly, but ultimately it's a place where people can post nearly anything and have it catch like wildfire.

Another thing that has contributed to the negative shift in the perception of health care can be attributed, in part, to the increased political polarization in the U.S., she said, which has infected discussions of health care, an arena where politics has no place.

However, Mosness said, some of this shift also seems to be the simple result of time passing, as more and more people have coalesced into ideological groups of the like-minded, and, united, their voices are far louder.

What's unfortunate about this situation, she said, is that the community, regardless of their opinions on vaccines, and health care want the same thing.

"I have kids, I want them to not have to worry about these things every day," she said. "... I think the end goal for the whole community is to get back to normal."

She said if everyone stops getting bogged down in ideological battles with each other and work toward that goal, it can be achieved.

Mosness also talked about the importance of the boosters that are increasingly available throughout the community, and the availability of the vaccines to more age-groups.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine now has been authorized for use in children 5 to 11, and the other vaccines authorized in the U.S. - the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccines are authorized for 18 and older - are working for authorization on younger people. Studies also are underway for using the vaccines on children younger than 5.

Mosness said people should talk to their primary health care providers to see if they are eligible for the booster and if they say yes, don't delay.

She said the boosters are very helpful in raising resistance to COVID-19, which is vital now that new variants have arrived.

While she's pleased with the number of people who came to Wednesday's booster shot clinic at the Holiday Village Mall, she said, people in health care are still worried for the future, wondering what the next variant could be and what it means for the health care system.

"It's kind of just a hold-your-breath situation," she said.

Mosness said Northern Montana Hospital is offering boosters everyday at its clinic and pharmacies throughout the area are doing the same so eligible people should get it as soon as possible.