Business Partners to CONVINCE Executive Director Dr. Scott Ratzan talked with KCBS Radio’s Holly Quan and Dan Mitchinson about the recent rise in corporate and government-employer COVID-19 vaccination mandates and the emotional impact mandates may have on employees. Listen to the interview from August 3, 2021 below.
Oakland-based Kaiser Permanente is requiring its workers to be vaccinated for COVID-19 by a certain date. Tyson Foods – the world’s largest producer – did too. New York City is requiring proof of vaccination to get into restaurants.
Are these mandates an effective way to get people vaccinated or could they spark resentment and resistance? It’s not just what you say in your messaging, it’s how you say it. How many times can you tell people that vaccines will save lives? That’s logic and reasoning talking. Then, how many times can you have that same message delivered by a trusted source like clergy, doctors or relatives?
Dr. Scott Ratzan is a physician and lecturer at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health. “Passion is the mover to action but reason and logic should be the guide,” he told KCBS Radio’s Holly Quan and Dan Mitchinson on Tuesday.
“We need to get people the messages and the communication in ways that they understand and ways that they care…to go to their reunions or go to a birthday party. Those are things that they care about that are both emotional but also evidence based.”
He’s been studying New Yorkers who aren’t getting shots and why.
He said not all of them are anti-vaxxers.
“It hasn’t necessarily been because they are hesitant or because they didn’t trust the system,” he explained. “It also had to do with access. Now that we have access and everybody can get the vaccine, I do think we will see a change and we have seen a change.”