Vaccine Skepticism is Harmful for Communities that are a Higher Risk for Severe Illness Associated with COVID-19

By Shant Mirzaians

The most prevalent health issues among Armenian Americans put them at higher risk for illness from COVID-19.

According to a study published by the National Center for Biotechnology Information, Armenians in Los Angeles have a higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease than non-Armenians. Another study published by Sage Journals found that type two diabetes mellitus and high blood pressure were also common among Los Angeles Armenians. These are all medical conditions that put people at higher risk of severe illness if they contract COVID-19.

California expanded vaccine eligibility on March 15 to people with certain health conditions including type two diabetes and certain heart conditions.

Los Angeles County has administered over 3 million vaccines as of March 20. Despite progress with inoculation and decreasing new daily case rates, young people still account for most new COVID-19 infections according to the Los Angeles County Health Department. With business restrictions lifting, people are gathering more in public and risk further spread of the virus. 

“Our [Armenian] culture is built on socialization, gatherings, celebrations and that’s the kind of people we are. We have a lot of preexisting conditions in our community too,” said Dr. Laura Issagholian, a clinical outpatient pharmacist in the infectious disease department at the Kaiser Permanente Panorama City Medical Center. “Together those things kind of make a recipe for disaster [for COVID-19]” said Issagholian.

Despite the higher risk for illness, there are many within the community that still hold skepticism over the vaccine.

Silva Sevlian (33) is an Armenian mother who was recently vaccinated. She stays in touch with her friends through brunch dates over Zoom. “I realize a lot of my very smart girlfriends are just opting out of the vaccine because they're afraid it's going to affect their future child bearing goals,” said Sevlian. She added, “There’s no science behind it.”

Meldis Zakarian (31) is an Armenian Los Angeles resident. She said her father was on the fence over the vaccine too, “I made my dad get it, he is 65 and he was skeptical. But now he is suggesting to everyone to get vaccinated.”

Dr. Artin Galoosian is the chief medicine resident at the California Pacific Medical Center and University of California, San Francisco. He said there are generally two distinct groups that fall into vaccine skepticism: those that have an institutional distrust of the medical industry, and those that fall prey to disinformation.

“That mistrust in this system is more or less a reflection, I would say, like the black community, and what's happened to them with the syphilis trials and the institutionalization of racism within the healthcare system,” said Galoosian.

“Now the disinformation, I think actually comes more from an area of privilege, if we're being honest,” he said. “Relatively educated people who read something, or have a certain belief or ideology about the vaccine that's causing them to mistrust the vaccine specifically,” said Galossian adding that he doesn’t typically see that same kind of mistrust coming from marginalized communities.

Both doctors agree that within these “two camps of people”, Armenians fall in the latter group. The kind of disinformation they’ve heard from the community range from distrusting medical professionals that stem from the confusion and ignorance of the virus during the initial outbreak in early 2020 to full blown conspiracy theories that the vaccine will include microchip tracking devices or rewrite people’s DNA.

“The thing is with COVID, everything kind of played out on the public stage. A lot of medicine is practice and error,” said Issagholian. She admits that there was bad communication when the virus first broke out, referring to how the public was told not to wear masks at first and whether or not the virus could transmit through physical contact. “When they tried to be more transparent, it just seemed confusing to people,” she added. 

Galoosian recounted friends and family reaching out and telling him they won’t be getting the vaccine because their church told them it includes aborted fetus cells (which it does not). He also noticed a lot of this skepticism and conspiracies come from Gen Xers and Millennials who are “having debates and fights with [medical] professionals who know what's going on.” 

The danger in this comes when those people then spread that disinformation to their family and the rest of the community.

Though some medical groups and professionals have been encouraging inoculation within the Armenian community, there has not been any real concentrated effort from the community at large. 

Issagholian said the Armenian community leaders need to step up in this effort and that the community should also look to see that Armenian doctors, pharmacists, and nurses are all getting vaccinated and promoting the vaccine. “This is a way to save our communities. And so we need to at least trust each other,” she said.

[Photo credit: Jernej Furman, WHO Website]