A Missouri doctor says people in her state are getting vaccines in disguise for fear of running into friends or family who might judge them

July 30, 2021

A Missouri doctor says people in her state are getting vaccines in disguise for fear of running into friends or family who might judge them

Dr. Priscilla Frase is chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare in Missouri.
She said people are dressing in disguise to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
She said people are concerned how their loved ones will react if they find out they got vaccinated.
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A Missouri doctor says people have been coming to her hospital in disguise to get the coronavirus vaccine, worried about running into family or friends and being judged.

Dr. Priscilla Frase, a hospitalist and chief medical information officer at Ozarks Healthcare, shared the observation in video released by her hospital on July 16.

Frase said in the video that one pharmacist told her that "they've had several people come in to get vaccinated who have tried to sort of disguise their appearance and even went so far as to say, 'Please, please, please don't let anybody know that I got this vaccine.'"

"They're very concerned about how their people that they love within their family and within their friendship circles and their work circles are going to react if they find out they got the vaccine," Frase said.

Missouri has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country. Just 41% of the state's population has been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus, making it the 13th state with the lowest vaccination rate, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There has been widespread vaccine hesitancy and outright opposition in the US, fueled in large part by misinformation about the vaccine's safety.

In an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Frase said the people who have been coming to her hospital for vaccinations have done their research and changed their minds on getting the vaccine, but fear how it will impact their relationships if friends who are against the vaccine find out.

"They've had some experience that's sort of changed their mind from the viewpoint of those in their family, those in their friendship circles or their work circles. And they came to their own decision that they wanted to get a vaccine," Frase told CNN.

"They did their own research on it, and they talked to people and made the decisions themselves. But even though they were able to make that decision themselves, they didn't want to have to deal with the peer pressure or the outbursts from other people about them ... 'giving in to everything.'"

Frase said the hospital is trying to be accommodating to those wanting privacy.

"Anything we can do to get people in a place that they're comfortable receiving the vaccine," Frase said. "It's not a large number, but every single person that we can reach who wants to get vaccinated and we can provide that for them, that's a win. And we take every win that we can get."

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