Beaufort, Jasper Co. nursing homes note staff hesitancy as hundreds get COVID-19 vaccine

Jan. 15—At least 531 residents of long-term care facilities in Beaufort and Jasper counties had received the first dose of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine as of early Thursday, according to federal data published by the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Roughly 340 staff members at those facilities, meanwhile, had received their first dose, data show.

It's unknown, though, what overall percentage of residents and staff in the two counties are still waiting for a shot or simply opting against inoculation.

DHEC, which releases Moderna information that's collected in a federal software system called Tiberius, also publishes the number of licensed beds at facilities, alongside Tiberius' vaccination numbers.

But the agency doesn't list online the total number of residents or staff members at those facilities.

The only way to accurately gauge how many people are interested in getting vaccinated is by contacting local long-term care administrators.

While at least 54% of long-term care residents in Beaufort and Jasper counties as of Thursday morning had already received their first dose (that percentage is almost certainly an underestimate and is based on overall bed capacity, not occupancy), administrators in interviews Thursday detailed what DHEC's website and Tiberius' limited data are masking:

Employees at some local nursing homes are more hesitant than residents to get the Moderna vaccine.

"I think there's anxiety with anything new," said Sandra Ferguson, administrator of Beaufort Nursing and Rehab.

Some staff members, she said, were nervous about getting vaccinated first as part of the state's distribution plan. (Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines were more than 94% efficacious in Phase 3 trials last year.)

Only 25% of employees at the nursing home received a dose during the facility's initial vaccine clinic late last month, Ferguson said.

In comparison, about 55% residents were vaccinated, Ferguson said. The facility is licensed for 170 beds, state records show.

The nursing home recently held a Q&A about COVID-19 vaccines for staff, she said, and Ferguson hopes that positive word-of-mouth pushes more people to get inoculated during a second clinic on Jan. 26. Ferguson got a shot and only had a sore arm for a bit.

"We really need to take advantage of this vaccination," Ferguson said. "It's the only thing that's going to get us back to some sense of normalcy."

Beaufort Nursing and Rehab has reported 72 coronavirus infections and nine deaths among residents in the past year, marking one of the area's largest long-term care outbreaks, DHEC data show.

Only 10% of staff members at the Ridgeland Nursing Center, meanwhile, got a shot during a clinic in late December, administrator Sheri Boyles said Thursday. The facility has roughly 80 people on staff.

Boyles expects more employees to get vaccinated during a second clinic on Jan. 26.

More than 60% of facility residents got their first Moderna shot last month, based on figures that Boyles provided. The Ridgeland Nursing Center has recorded 20 resident cases and five resident deaths since April, DHEC data show.

In a December interview, Boyles previously told The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that about 55% of staff members wanted a vaccine. Others were still unsure.

"We're getting mixed signals," she said at the time.

Several other long-term care facility administrators around Beaufort County didn't immediately respond to phone messages seeking comment for this story Thursday.

Dr. Brannon Traxler, DHEC's interim director of public health, during a Wednesday briefing with reporters said the state had already allocated the needed amount of Moderna doses to a long-term care vaccination program in South Carolina.

Beginning this week, Traxler said, some Moderna doses will be distributed at other vaccine sites.

DHEC as of late Wednesday had received 117,900 Moderna doses, data show. The agency said it had allocated roughly 101,700 of those to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program that's tasked with providing vaccines to S.C. nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

CVS and Walgreens, as part of that initiative, have been sending teams of pharmacists out to handle inoculations.

Long-term care residents and employees are prioritized in DHEC's Phase 1a of vaccine distribution, which began in mid-December. The agency has been criticized by S.C. lawmakers and Gov. Henry McMaster, who say the rollout is moving too slowly (DHEC doesn't play a major role in the CDC program, it just allocates doses to the initiative).

It remains unclear, though, to what extent vaccine hesitancy has affected the rollout's speed and how many Moderna doses are sent to individual CVS and Walgreens locations around South Carolina. And while DHEC publishes vaccine utilization rates for hospitals, it doesn't do the same for long-term care facilities.

Only about 17% of Moderna doses had been administered statewide as of early Thursday, data show. And roughly 52% of Pfizer doses had been administered outside of long-term care facilities.

"There are some very real and understandable reasons for why some people do have vaccine hesitancy," Traxler told reporters last month. "You can look at the Tuskegee, you can look at Henrietta Lacks, and those events we definitely need to acknowledge. ... They did lead to a lot of the safety processes in place now."

BEHIND OUR REPORTING

How we covered this story

Facts about COVID-19 vaccine distribution in South Carolina are changing rapidly. The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette are trying to publish important information as quickly and accurately as possible. This story may be updated if more information becomes available or if facts become clearer.

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