Thread by @MoriartyLab

#Canadian #medtwitter

Many are feeling conflicted about posting vaccine selfies b/c of very real & important equity concerns.

But we cannot underestimate how important it is for people to see that we know the vaccines are safe & how life-changing it is to receive them.

I actually think we should keep posting these, but perhaps we can say that we'll only do this if simultaneously we advocate hard for transparent data reporting on progress on vaccination in vulnerable sectors, and then to improve this progress.

For example, here's QC is reporting daily on vaccination progress in high priority vulnerable sectors (example: cdn-contenu.quebec.ca/cdn-contenu/sa…). It's unacceptable that other provinces aren't doing this, b/c it allows them to hide progress on the most critical, widely accepted goals.

There is intense political pressure on provincial governments right now to expand scope of early vaccination priorities to include healthcare and other staff who aren't necessarily in a public-facing role, & multiple labour sectors.

My personal view is that this self-advocacy by many groups is important, but it is overwhelming the limited capacity for self-advocacy of the most vulnerable and marginalized, who have borne the brunt of the epidemic.

So, if you receive notice that you will be vaccinated, I would take the dose, post about it so people know you trust & want the vaccine, but put pressure on the organizations you're part of not to lose sight of those who most need protection.

Direct the pressure toward your own professional & labour organizations to require the government to meet their vaccination goals for the most vulnerable & high priority, then focus on your needs next.

I'm obviously not talking about the most at-risk HCWs, but I am most definitely talking about lower-risk HCWs, research staff associated with hospitals, anyone who is not at risk of severe disease.

The thing is, if the most vulnerable are protected, there's less chance of healthcare systems being overwhelmed.

So if we want to protect healthcare system & HCWs, we should be pushing our governments to protect the most vulnerable via vaccination as fast as humanly possible.

I know this is hard. We're all scared by what's likely coming like a tsunami (the UK/SA maybe other variants).

We must vaccinate the most vulnerable & those most likely to fill our hospital & intensive care beds.

They must come first, for moral & healthcare capacity reasons.

Do you know what's more important than protecting lower-risk hospital workers (as important as that is), ensuring that LTC residents & staff don't get sick. In large LTC outbreaks affecting staff, there aren't enough people left to meet basic human needs of residents.

LTC staff have a tiny collective capacity for self-advocacy. Other healthcare organizations are drowning them out, and drowning the voices of LTC residents & their families. We MUST be mindful of this when we push internally to speed up vaccination of our own sectors.

So, sure, post your own vaccine selfies--people need to see this to trust the vaccines (and there's a lot of uncertainty out there about them).

But if you do that, commit to also advocating publicly for the most vulnerable, and personally do at least one thing to fight for them.

not sure if this is a bad take, but on the misinfo side of things I see people seeing HCWs hesitating over accepting vaccines due to equity concerns as actually HCWs hesitating because they're not sure of safety. We must be very mindful of this perception & its ripple effects.