Covid~19 Vaccine Hesitancy (2 CEU’s)

In January 2020, WHO discovered a new coronavirus disease believed to have emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province in China (Sheikhpour, 2020). Coronaviruses (CoVs) are the largest group of viruses causing respiratory and gastrointestinal infections containing non-segmented positive-sense, single-stranded ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses (Pal et al., 2020). This RNA is a human infecting virus that likely originated in chrysanthemum bats based on its genetic proximity to two bat-derived SARS-like coronaviruses, the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) (Del Rio & Malani, 2020). This SARS-CoV has quickly become a global pandemic and the biggest threat to the United States (US) healthcare systems due to its high transmissibility. Mitigation measures include the development of a Covid-19 vaccine to build herd immunity amongst the public in addition to following best practices such as masking, isolating those who are infected, and maintaining physical distancing. Vaccine hesitancy, a behavior that demonstrates a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite available services, has depolarized the vaccine-supporters and their anti-vaccine counterparts and is now considered a global health threat by the WHO (Chou & Budenz, 2020).  The attitudes and utilization of vaccination by healthcare workers and hospital employees is a significant factor that is consistently associated with the public’s acceptance of the vaccine, adherence to vaccination schedules, and reduced hesitation/aversion (Kabamba et al., 2020). Addressing healthcare workers’ attitudes and beliefs is paramount as vaccination is a critical component of pandemic preparedness and acceptance of vaccinations is essential to its success. Vaccine hesitancy is believed to be responsible for decreasing vaccine coverage as well as increasing risk of the vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks (Dubé et al., 2013). Due to the low level of Covid~19 vaccination acceptance intentions and the high proportion of hesitation, there is a need for evidence-based strategies to improve the uptake of the vaccination in advance of their implementation (Wang et al., 2020). Health professionals’ intention to use and to recommend the vaccine to their patients depends on their knowledge and attitudes about vaccines. Strategies to change these attitudes are paramount as healthcare professionals who have an unfavorable attitude, aversion, or hesitation towards vaccinations transmit these hostile attitudes to patients and tend to recommend vaccination less frequently (Kabamba et al., 2020).   Learning Objectives After completion of this course, CNA’s will be able to:

• • • Understand Covid~19 vaccine development
    • Understand what it means to have herd immunity
    • Overcome vaccine hesitancy and be an advocate for the vaccine
    • Understand strategies to prevent Covid~19 transmission

Instructions for taking the course

To complete the course successfully, you must go through all the lessons below. You MUST mark each lesson as complete by clicking the MARK COMPLETE BUTTON. If you do not click the mark complete button, you will not be allowed to proceed to the next lesson. Please notice that all lessons have a minimum set amount of time that you are expected to spend on each lesson. You will not be allowed to Mark the Lesson Complete until the timer resets to zero; that is, until the minimum time set for the course has passed. For example if lesson A has an allocated minimum time of 10 minutes, you will have to wait 10 minutes before you can mark Lesson A complete. The Mark Complete button for lesson A will be grayed out and will not become active until 10 minutes are over. WARNINGIf you forget to click the Mark Complete button done, you will be prompted to go back to that lesson again and have to wait till the allocated timed minutes resets to zero again before the Mark Complete button becomes active. After all lessons are completed and they are Marked Completed, you will then be allowed to take the post test. If you successfully pass the quiz, you will earn CEU’s for this course and you can proceed to print out your certificate. LESSONS & QUIZ BELOW