Will Amish Get Vaccinated For COVID?

I notice that people are wondering lately if the Amish are going to vaccinate for COVID-19. A recent study showed that 75% of Amish in one large community would reject the COVID vaccine. So you see why it is a concern for the people paid to worry about these things.

Image: David Arment

Here’s one report from CBS21 on how that is playing out in Pennsylvania, home to the largest Amish population, and a large plain Mennonite population as well:

Outreach efforts are going under the microscope as our region prepares to mass vaccinate.

The Department of Health says they are working with health systems in Plain Communities to “assist in providing information about the COVID-19 vaccine”, systems like Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health.

“We have identified key partners in the Plain Community, in the healthcare community or just some other relationship with the Amish so we can get it to them and then they can disseminate to their community within their circle of influence,” said Alice Yoder, the Executive Director of Community Health, Penn Medicine LGH.

How else is information being spread?

“We’ve identified some publications that they read on a regular basis so we’ve started to put things in those publications about the vaccine, about its safety and the benefits of it as well,” said Yoder.

And:

Ultimately the task is to meet them where they live and plans are in place to do that with the vaccine.

“We’re looking at ways, asking the community what they want, we’ve had vaccination clinics for the flu at firehalls so we may have pop-up clinics in rural areas of our community,” said Yoder.

The Governor’s Legislative COVID Vaccine Task Force is aware of some of the challenges and is working on remedies.

It sounds like they are working hard to figure this out. But is it going to work?

Will this work?

I think a big part of this – like with any vaccination effort – is whether the community feels there is a real need to be vaccinated. And it may be that Amish in this settlement or that believe they have already been ill with COVID in significant numbers. That’s what I’ve been hearing is the case in some of the largest settlements.

After all, this is not a short-term time frame event we are talking about. The pandemic has been running for a year now, many people have gotten ill from something in the course of a year (be it COVID, flu, cold or something else), and it’s natural to suppose – or want to suppose – that you’ve already had it, especially if people you know have had it (or something that sounds like it), and after all you did have that nasty bug for a few days last autumn which sounded a lot like COVID…

If so, it’s going to be a harder sell to convince Amish to get COVID vaccinations. Why would you vaccinate if you think you’ve already had COVID, and thus have antibodies?

And avoiding getting tested – as some have claimed to be the case in Amish communities – only compounds the issue.

So this factor in particular might make getting widespread immunizations for COVID more difficult than it has been in recent cases of shorter-term, less nebulous outbreaks of diseases in Amish areas – such as Hepatitis A (Highland County, OH, 2019), whooping cough (Webster County, MO, 2017) and measles (greater Holmes County, OH, 2014).

In at least two of those instances, large numbers of Amish lined up to be vaccinated. But I believe the threat in those cases was more clearly understood, there was minimal conspiracy theorizing around the issues, and there was likely little gray-area speculation as to whether someone might have already been infected with the given disease and thus protected via antibodies.

That is only one of the roadblocks I see, but it is a significant one. If you’re wondering what objections Amish have to vaccination in general, this video explains that:

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    12 Comments

    1. alber baker

      amish vaccination

      “right is right no matter how many people are against it
      wrong is wrong no matter how many people are for it.”

      – William Penn

      1. Amy Lisowky

        Help

        How can non Amish people refuse the vaccine and can you just become Amish? Thanks

    2. Amish and vaccines

      The Amish, like all Americans, are free to refuse the COVID vaccine. However, being free to do so does not make them right. Willful ignorance is a major cause of the spread of the virus. There is also that “select” segment of the population not connected with the Amish, that is also a cause. They know who they are.

      1. Amy Liswky

        Wrong

        You need to research with a non Google browser. You are being lied to and experimented on. So much wealth for a non fatal virus for 99 percent of people that are not sick already. What happened to add lol the flu deaths? What happened to all the normal deaths that occur? It’s all covid now. said it doesn’t make sense it’s not true!

    3. Christine McMahon-Chase

      Vaccinated for Covid?

      Getting a vaccine that is authorized for emergency use but not yet approved by the FDA may give some people cause to continue living cautiously and wait on the vaccine until further research and (hopefully) eventual FDA approval.

      1. COVID vaccine

        The only vaccine only approved for emergency use is the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The others have been approved by the FDA. By the way, the vaccine is not all that new. There has been a Corona vaccine available for years. The COVID one is from that original vaccine, but with some tweaking.

        1. Amy Liwsky

          Not true

          Have you even read from the CDC or FDA information? What you said is completely false. It’s not FDA approved because people would be able to have compensation from the vaccine funds if it was. All covered vaccines are covered if something happens to you. RNA genetic tampering shots, which has never gotten past the animal or children trials has killed and hurt them. It’s NEBER worked. Why does it work now when they skip the trials? Those who caved and became part of the experiment want everyone to suffer. This is currently still America, not China or Marxist or communist and we have rights. Have you ever had a fit not knowing if somebody had a flu vaccine, which is deadlier than this? You are being controlled and lied to! Wake up. You will lose your freedom if you don’t.

          1. Amish and herd immunity

            Ms. Liwsky: I have gone back to the CDC reports.

            Updated Aug 4/2021 at 9:14 AM local time:

            Confirmed COVID cases: 35,325,243 +149,788

            Confirmed COVID deaths: 618,793 + 214

            The U.S. saw about 600 deaths from influenza during the 2020–2021 flu season. In comparison, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated there were roughly 22,000 deaths in the prior season and 34,000 two seasons ago.

            COVID is killing more people than the flu!

            As for the FDA approving the COVID vaccines here is the latest:
            WABC – NY
            Full FDA approval for Pfizer vaccine expected in September.
            The Moderna vaccine will also be given FDA approval. J & J will approval will come later.

            As for compensation for COVID vaccine problems and compensation, here is some information:

            “COVID-19 Vaccine Injuries March 22, 2021
            Following the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) emergency authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech,
            Moderna, and Janssen Biotech/Johnson & Johnson vaccines against COVID-19, millions of Americans
            have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine regimen. Based on months-long clinical trials
            (including safety monitoring) of each vaccine candidate involving tens of thousands of participants, FDA
            did not identify any safety concerns for these vaccines that would preclude FDA emergency use
            authorization. As with most vaccines, however, a very small percentage of inoculated individuals
            experienced adverse reactions to a COVID-19 vaccine. Anecdotal reports from early in the COVID-19
            vaccination campaign include several cases of anaphylaxis—a severe and potentially life-threatening
            allergic reaction—following vaccination.
            According to a joint study by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and
            FDA, there were 21 reported cases of anaphylaxis from the first 1.9 million Pfizer/BioNTech
            vaccinations. Nearly all of these individuals (19 of 21) received epinephrine as treatment. Although some
            of these individuals were hospitalized, all have recovered and were discharged; no deaths were reported.
            The most recent evidence available indicates serious allergic reactions to COVID-19 vaccines occur in
            approximately two to five people per million doses administered. Although these serious adverse events
            are rare, the CDC recommends that all individuals be monitored for at least 15 minutes following their
            vaccinations, and that all vaccination sites have epinephrine available for treatment of anaphylaxis.
            Federal law has two distinct vaccination compensation regimes that may compensate individuals harmed
            by adverse reactions. In general, the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) may provide
            compensation for injuries or deaths associated with most vaccines routinely administered in the United
            States (such as pediatric and seasonal influenza vaccines). During certain public health emergencies, the
            Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP) may provide compensation for injuries and
            deaths resulting from the administration of “covered countermeasures” under the Public Readiness and
            Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act), which may include vaccines.
            Under the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) PREP Act Declaration for COVID-19 (and
            its amendments), COVID-19 vaccines are considered covered countermeasures within the PREP Act’s
            scope. As a result, CICP—and not VICP—will apply to injuries resulting from COVID-19 vaccinations
            while the public health emergency persists and the Declaration remains in force. Compensation through
            Congressional Research Service
            https://crsreports.congress.gov
            LSB10584″

            When I want information regarding my health, I go to legitimate medical sources within the medical community, i.e. my doctors and friends or relatives who are based in the medical or scientific communities. I don’t go to Qanon sources. As for the government wanting to control us and take away our freedoms, few businesses are requiring their employees to be vaccinated. While some privately-owned businesses are requiring their employees to be vaccinated and masked, they are not forcing them. Those w refusing to follow safety mandates are free to seek employment elsewhere. There are plenty of jobs out there! As for the federal government, this is what they are doing regarding the strengthening of safety protocols for Federal Employees and Federal Contractors:
            “The President will announce that to help protect workers and their communities, every federal government employee and onsite contractor will be asked to attest to their vaccination status. Anyone who does not attest to being fully vaccinated will be required to wear a mask on the job, no matter their geographic location, physically distance from all other employees and visitors, comply with a weekly or twice weekly screening testing requirement, and be subject to restrictions on official travel.”
            Similarly to employees in the private sector, anti-vaxxing federal employees are free to seek employment elsewhere.

            It is you who must wake up!

            1. Amy L

              Wrong

              You are 100 percent wrong. The FDA has not approved as any of these shots because they are not helping but hurting. Did you look up the over 600,000 injuries and deaths from the vaccine and only 1 percent is reported. We had a little girl go into brain sezuries after the shot but never before. Many of my family got so called covid and are fine until they get the shot, one my daughter got very sick. They are being told to tell you that we every death is covid. Wake up!!!! Why can people stream across the border with covid and not getting shots if it’s do deadly? Why is government paid for? Big Money!!!! You are an experiment!!! I will not be one. Natural immunity is the best and they are ignoring it to force everybody to get the shot of RNA. This mutates every 10 hours. That’s why the shot doesn’t work. We have had, no problems in healthy peoples, the flu has been much worse. Use duck duck go and research real days, besides the VARS reporting horrifically high deaths and adverse reaction. Do all other deaths besides car accidents disappear. They are deviding our country to conquer it. I am over 60 and our world has been amazing and full of peace with all groups of people until the manufacturing with gain of function virus was released. Mr fauci killed people who are old and sick. Isn’t that helpful to take over a healthy county. You will lose so many basic rights if you don’t get over being part of an experiment and wake up. It will be your group of people next. I have a son in law from India and he can’t believe what our leaders are doing, he came to America for a reason. I have a Mexican son in law still trying to get legal citizenship while millions of people stream across the boarder and have no shots of they just say no. I have a homosexual son and son in law and they have never had any proplems with their rights. You are being snowed!!!! This is all about a take over. I know 100 percent because all my kids live in big cities except for teo. They know what is going on because they are intelligent and paying close attention to what is being made up and what is really happening. My gay son in law is a emergency room nurse. I KNOW the TRUTH about what is going on, millions of people do. Wake up. I will not copy and paste wrong and not factual information.

              1. Amish and herd immunity

                Amy L: You still have not provided a shred of evidence to back any of your claims. You are a Qanoner…you will never provide any proof, because, you haven’t any! Your sons-in-law are irrelevant to the discussion. The fact that your children live in the big city is also irrelevant. Living in the big city is not a guarantee of intelligence or knowledge. Big cities are rife with delusional quacks! That your “gay” son-in-law works in an emergency room is only relevant in that, as a medical professional, he should know better than to align himself with Qanon. Nurses who don’t trust science are not trustworthy and don’t belong in the medical field.
                I copy and paste information regarding the vaccine approval, because I try to provide proof to back my claims. I don’t go on hysterical rants about how I have a special conduit to the truth because my children live in the big city, or that my Indian son-in-law is from India and doesn’t understand what our leaders are doing, or that your other son-in-law is Mexican and still waiting for his US citizenship, while “millions” of illegals are crossing the southern borders. Have you been to the border? Have you watched and counted the “millions” of illegals crossing the border? If millions were really crosiing the border, they would overrun the border patrol and could easily take over. Millions of angry, hungry, desperate immigrants are very strong and very determined. That is, if they are in the millions. They aren’t!

                600,000 dead and injured from the vaccines? It’s 614,000 dead from COVID, and over 3 million sick from COVID! Get your medical facts from legitimate sources, not big city medical quacks!

    4. Amy L

      Wrong very wrong

      Also, we had an older person in our community who died of a stroke, not covid, and they didn’t test him, the family is very upset they put covid as the death certificate. They have all been informed to put covid for everything except like car accident where people can prove it. My daughter in law that stayed close by is a nursing home director. All her staff that got covid were fine, most didn’t have a fever, no residents died but they got very depressed from being locked away from friends and family. I have do many kids all over, college educated and say they had to take classes about hating America. They didn’t listen because they knew better. Your world will go from forced genetic engineering to constantly lockdowns. Everyone will have nothing as business close. Have you ever studied Hitler, and the other takeovers? That is what the radicals are ding okay by play!!! My great grandfather came here from Germany because of the exact same problems. I have a direct line of true information from three states and you are being lied to and your rights are being taken away with FEAR, research the takeovers. Unvaccinated will become the Holocaust and than Maybe a group you belong to!! Stand up against this. See how many people don’t die from covid. I have truth!!!!!! I am also college educated and see what they have been doing to turn everybody against the us. I felt the opposite of what I feel now 4 years ago, but I researched the truth. You are in a takeover!!!

      1. Amish and herd immunity

        Amy L: Did your parents think they were in a takeover when they had you and your siblings vaccinated against polio, typhoid, small pox, measles, mumps, etc.? Did you think you were being taken over when you had your kids vaccinated? That is, if you have kids? Absolutely no student in college or any school, has had to take classes on hating America! That is a lie and you know it! If teaching our children the truth about America’s history is what you call teaching our children to hate America, then you have a serious problem with reality. This country is in no way a perfect country. There are millions of racists, bigots, hypocritical “Christians”, religious zealots, and liars. Our children need to be taught about the true Civil War, the true American Revolution, the truth about our Founding Fathers owning slaves, and how slaves built this country during those years, making lots of money for their owners. As for studying Hitler, I know more about Hitler than you do. My mother was born and raised in Alsace Lorraine, France, in 1917. She lived on the French/German border town of Grosbliederstroff, before moving to the city of Metz, for high school. That whole area was Occupied France. She and her sister worked for the Resistance during WWII. She met Hitler when he went to Metz, to give one of his many speeches. He had visited her office (she worked in the rations office), to see how rations were being doled out. There were several Jewish families living on the same street she did. My mother talked about seeing the Gestapo going to their houses and then, leaving with the families, who were never seen again. My brother-in-law’s grandparents were wealthy Austrian Jews, who were killed in Auschwitz. My brother-in-law’s father and siblings managed to get out of Austria just a couple of months before their parents were arrested. My mother’s sister-in-in-law’s husband was a German officer who was killed by the SS after they learned that he had turned against Hitler. She told us about the tests she had to take to prove she was an Aryan, in order to marry her husband. She was there when they arrested her husband. She and her two toddlers to had to move in with her brother because the SS had confiscated all of their possessions. They were now penniless. She was very lucky that, because her friends knew how her husband’s opinion of Hilter, they did not tar and feather her after the war. My father, an officer in the US Army, was stationed in Dijon, France, right after the US Army took over that region of Occupied France. That is where he met my mother. I don’t know what year your parents fled Germany, so, I don’t know how much they lived through or how much they told you. What I do know is that I was taught about Hitler by someone who lived through the German occupation of France. Everything she told us, she either saw firsthand or experienced. As I once informed another poster on this site, that, due to my father’s job as a diplomat, we traveled extensively throughout eastern Europe during the Cold War era. I saw what a dictatorship did to those countries. Communism is one thing; dictatorship is quite another. I also lived in a war zone in the Middle East. I know what war does to a country. Do you? As for your having a direct line of true information in three states, what is that direct line? What is that true information? What are those three states? Please inform those of us who are not privileged to have that true information directly from those three states. What you take for a direct line to true information, is nothing but a direct line to Qanon conspiracies with absolutely nothing legitimate to back them up. You guys always claim you have proof, information, but, you never produce any of it. There’s always an excuse as to why you can’t produce any of it. As for doing research, I can assure you that I do extensive research. I have to! You might listen to the conspiracies your fellow Qanoners spout, and think they are actual “news”, but, conspiracies are not news. Conspiracies are rumors that someone with an ax to grind starts, in order to sow discord. There is nothing righteous about conspiracies. Especially those spouted by Qanon! You need to be deprogrammed!