Offer 'welcome to the party' not blame for being tardy when vaccine hesitant come around: pastor

A Steinbach pastor is encouraging Manitobans to congratulate those in their lives for getting vaccinated, even if they were once on the fence or didn't take the first opportunity to do so.

"When people get vaccinated later than we'd like, ourfirst posture [shouldn't be] 'You're too late, buddy, where were you?'" said Kyle Penner,associate pastor at Grace Mennonite Church in Steinbach.

"Our first posture is,'Welcome to the party, we're glad you're here.'"

Penner is one of several southern Manitoba religious leaders working with provincial vaccine task force officials to spur uptake in areaswith lower rates, including in Mennonite communities.

He believes most in hiscongregation are already partially vaccinated, but just shy of43per cent ofeligible residents in theSteinbach health districthad received one dose as of Friday well underthe provincial average of 64 per cent for those 12 and up, according to provincial data.

Steinbach's rate is about four percentage points higher than Altona health district andconsiderably higher than Winkler (27 per cent), about 100 kilometres to the west,and Stanley (14 per cent), the district that surrounds Winkler and Morden.

Steinbach's neighbouring health districts of Hanover andSte. Anne/LaBroqueriewere at 31 per cent and 46 per cent respectively.

Rates in Steinbach climbed about five per cent in the past seven days, according to theprovincial data.

That uptick is likely linked toanimmunization supersitethat opened in the citythree weeks ago. Prior to that, the closest option for those in Steinbach was in Winnipeg, 50 kilometres away.

Now that it's opened, Steinbach appointments are booked solid for weeks, a sign to Penner that earlier lowvaccination rates may have been due not just tohesitancy or anti-vaccination attitudes, but also to access.

Location, location, location

"It's incredibly busy," Steinbach Mayor Earl Funk told Radio Noon host Marjorie Dowhos on Friday.

The supersite is now vaccinatingabout 420 people a day on average, or about 2,900 a week, Funk said.

He's been eligiblefor weeks but elected to wait for the Steinbach site opening, because it was important for him to get his shot locally. He got his first doseThursday.

"I'm a local guy. We do everything local," Funk said.

"It's very important to me, but alsoto show the residents of Steinbach that I am serious and that I stand behind what I say, and that's why I wanted to do it in our hometown to have solidarity."

Dr. Joss Reimer, the Manitoba vaccine task force's medical lead,saidthis week that the vast majority of people in low-uptake communities who remain reluctantaren't necessarily anti-vaccine. Those with reservations may, however, lack confidence inCOVID-19 vaccinesin particular, or have questions about them, she said.

WATCH |Low confidence in COVID-19 shots (June 2):

Most hesitant in southern Manitoba not anti-vaccine they just don't yet have confidence in COVID-19 shot: Reimer.

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Dr. Joss Reimer, medical lead of the vaccine task force, says for the most part hesitancy in pockets of southern Manitoba has less to do with anti-vaccine attitudes, and more to do with lingering questions and a lack of confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine in particular.

An expert in how faith and religion caninfluence vaccine hesitancy says it's important to acknowledge people hold off on immunization for a variety of reasons.

Trying to explain hesitancy by focusing on questions about vaccine science can also distract from the "ambient distrust and anxiety that people see," saidPaul Bramadat,director of theCentre for Studies in Religion and Society at the University of Victoria.

He notes a "declining sense of authority aboutmedicine and government."

Bramadat saidit's common in some Christiancommunities to believe God not only has a general plan for howthe universe should unfold, but a specific plan for their individual lives.

There's a layer of distrust of the secular world on top of that, he said, stemmingfrom persecution at the hands of the state thatin some cases dates back centuries. That's whyit's important to put in the time building relationships, Bramadat says.

"The problem is in a pandemic environment, you don't really have time to be patient and open because people are actually dying. So it's this complicated balance."

Opening up

He recommends people open up about theirrationale for why they got vaccinated.

"There's a strong emphasis in our culture of making a private decision: 'it's my decision, I made it, I don't need to preach about it,' and in fact it might be considered rude to tell my neighbour and my sister and my cousin that I've done that," he said.

"We need to get over that concern of everyone's privacy and begin to share."

Winkler Mayor Martin Hardertold CBC News last weekend that part of the explanation for slow uptake there was linked to a senseof pride in self-sufficiency.

Penner echoed that sentiment about people in Steinbach.

"When community leaders stepup and say, 'We don't need you, province, we're going to do this ourselves,' greatI think the province needs to ... support those voices," he said.

"We want to figure things out ourselves, and that's actually a good thing."

WATCH | Mennonite womanurges others to get vaccinated after brush with COVID-19:

'I was totally against vaccinating': Mennonite woman urges hesitant to reconsider

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Katharina Giesbrecht shares how a terrifying brush with COVID-19 changed her mind about getting vaccinated. Now, the southern Manitoba Mennonite woman is doing her part to encourage others on the fence in her faith community to do the same.