How one woman overcame her vaccine hesitancy: 'You call them anti-vaxxers - I believe a lot of them are just afraid'

Oxford Vaccine — A person receives the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Reuters/Johanna Geron

Marie-Hélène Desmarais was scared of coronavirus vaccines, even though she knew the facts.
With encouragement from friends and family, she got her first Pfizer dose on Saturday.
Desmarais said people shouldn't let fear get in the way of protecting themselves from COVID-19.
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Last week, Marie-Hélène Desmarais sat down in a chair at her local vaccine clinic in Montreal. But she ran out just seconds before her shot could be administered.

It wasn't the needle that scared her, but the idea of some unforeseen safety concern that scientists hadn't picked up on yet. It had taken more than a month for her to muster the courage to go to the clinic at all.

"At first I would just go drive by the clinic just to see what it looked like, but I wouldn't stop," Desmarais, a 47-year-old who runs a printing company, told Insider. "My fears were that big. Then the next time I would drive by and sit in the parking lot."

A selfie of Desmarais.
Marie-Hélène Desmarais

Sometimes she got so nervous she threw up.

Desmarais knew the stats: Vaccines are safe and effective, and any rare adverse reactions usually show up right away, so the possibility of long-term side effects is unlikely. And of course, getting COVID-19 comes with a much higher prospect of severe illness and long-term consequences than vaccines do. The shots lower the risk of hospitalization and death 25-fold, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Desmarais said she tried not to consume anti-vaccine propaganda online, focusing strictly on clinical studies. Her last vaccination experience - getting a hepatitis shot as a teenager - went smoothly, she said.

But, as Desmarais put it, "fears really don't make much sense."

She worried, without scientific reason, that a newly authorized vaccine would somehow linger in her body or travel toward her brain. (In reality, the mRNA in coronavirus vaccines degrades within a few days and vaccines stay near the injection site - in this case, the muscle.)

"I was so angry at myself. I said, 'Why can't I do this? Even kids are doing this. What's my problem? Why can't I just be part of the solution?'" Desmarais told Insider. "It was really hard on me, actually. I did go into a depression and a self-hatred because I absolutely wanted to get this vaccine, but I just couldn't do it."

It took a community to convince Desmarais that she could indeed do it. Her mother-in-law researched ways for Desmarais to get vaccinated at home (an option only available to those with mobility issues). And her mother pleaded with her to consider her risk of infection.

"My mother would say, 'I don't want to lose my child because she was afraid of getting vaccinated,'" Desmarais said.

Then last Saturday, as if by magic, Desmarais saw a mobile vaccination clinic pull up to the park across from her house.

"I was like, 'Oh my god. It is my chance,'" she said.

A friend offered to register Desmarais at the clinic, then wait there until Desmarais felt comfortable enough to show up. In the afternoon, Desmarais walked across the street with her husband, daughter, and dog. In her pocket, she'd stashed a piece of paper that contained information she'd gathered about the vaccine.

"In case I had a huge panic attack with all these negative thoughts, I would be able to take the paper out and start reading the facts - not what my mind was trying to say," she said.

A nurse quickly administered a Pfizer shot, then sat with Desmarais on her porch for the next 15 minutes. Desmarais said that when she looked at her husband, daughter, and friend, they seemed to have tears in their eyes.

"I got up and I said, 'You just vaccinated the person that was the most afraid in Quebec,'" Desmarais said.

'You call them anti-vaxxers - I believe a lot of them are just afraid'

Eight months after coronavirus vaccines became available to the public, vaccination rates have fallen from their peak levels in countries like Canada, the UK, and the US. But the US's daily vaccination rate has risen 21% in the last two weeks, and all three countries have seen rates of vaccine hesitancy decline over time.

When the Environics Institute for Survey Research asked Canadians in February whether they were likely to get vaccinated, 75% of those surveyed said they would "definitely or probably" get a shot. By June, 82% said they'd already been vaccinated or would "definitely or probably" do so.

In the US in February, 55% of adults said they had already received a vaccine or would get one as soon as possible, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll. By July, that figure had risen to 69%. People who weren't vaccinated were more likely to believe that vaccines were a greater risk to their health than COVID-19.

Desmarais thinks the key to overcoming one's vaccine hesitancy is threefold: Have the courage to acknowledge your fears, surround yourself with people who can help you overcome those fears, and remind yourself of the facts, she said.

"I had to really pound it in my head and try to rationalize the truth, not go with the side of me that was petrified," Desmarais said, adding, "If I would've had a lot of people being like, 'No, we don't get vaccines,' I would have probably followed them because it would have been easier for me."

Lately, however, she has connected with several vaccine-hesitant people on Facebook who said they could be open to getting a COVID-19 shot. Desmarais offered to talk to them by phone as they go through with it.

"You call them anti-vaxxers - I believe a lot of them are just afraid," she said. "For them it's easier to be anti-vax than to be able to say to people, 'Listen, I'm a 6-foot-3 big bodybuilder, or I'm a dad, and I can't get the vaccine because I'm afraid.'"

For Desmarais at least, the anticipation was the hardest part, not the side effects. She felt only minor arm pain after her first shot, she said, and plans to return for her second in a few weeks - even if it takes multiple attempts to work up the courage.

"Even if I have to do it again 20 times to get the second dose, I'm going to do it," she said.

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