For one group receiving the COVID-19 vaccine at Central Avenue Park in Groton on Tuesday, getting vaccinated was a family affair: Donna Vaneyk was there with her two sons and daughter-in-law.

"My family came to hold my hand. That's the reason why I'm here," said Vaneyk, 62. She said she doesn't like needles and held out on getting vaccinated. But she works in a nursing home, and Gov. Ned Lamont signed an executive order Aug. 6 requiring staff of long-term care facilities to be vaccinated.

Vaneyk likes her job of more than 13 years and didn't want to lose it. One of her sons, 31-year-old TJ Vaneyk, said he had been wanting to get the shot. He said of the coronavirus, "I really don't see it going away, so I might as well get involved in the system."

They were at a clinic in the Poquonnock Bridge section hosted by Ledge Light Health District. With more than 2 million people in the state fully vaccinated in the eight months since the vaccines received emergency authorization, Ledge Light is lucky to get a double-digit number of takers at a given clinic, director Steve Mansfield has said. The state has a population of about 3.6 million.

Some people at this and other clinics this past week shared their reasons for hesitancy and what made them eventually decide to get vaccinated.

Pamela Mahon, 54, said she held off on getting vaccinated because she was nervous about side effects. She works at a pizza place, and she pointed to its dining room reopening to customers as part of the reason she got vaccinated. She also said her sisters who are nurses persuaded her.

Mahon said she works 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. a lot, so it's been difficult to squeeze in a vaccination. But she lives near the park, so it was convenient.

"I feel much better about it," she said during her 15-minute observation period after getting the shot. She added that the delta variant scares her, and "I feel responsible, too. I need to participate, like everyone else is."

An AP-NORC poll from July found that among unvaccinated adults, 35% of respondents said they probably won't get the vaccine and 45% said they definitely won't. While there is evidence the vaccine provides strong protection against variants, 64% of unvaccinated respondents have little to no confidence the shots are effective against variants.

Wait-and-see approach

Some of the volunteer nurses at the clinic shared stories of vaccine hesitancy they've heard. Juanita Durham said at the clinic at nearby Poquonnock Plains Park for National Night Out on Aug. 3, she approached a woman looking "quizzical."

She said the woman asked her, "Could you get that man over there to get the vaccine?" Durham, 77, said she walked up to the man and basically said, "I'm really old, and old women are really bossy. As a really old woman, I'm going to tell you that I'd like to walk you over to register for the vaccine."

The man said OK.

His wife showed Durham a picture of her family, and Durham noticed that their son was someone who came to a vaccine clinic where she volunteered two months ago — and since his 24th birthday had been coming up, everyone sang happy birthday.

Siobhan Gordon, a registered nurse volunteering through the Medical Reserve Corps, said a lot of people who came to the National Night Out clinic got vaccinated because they were scared of the delta variant, and also to protect young family members.

She also recalled one couple where the pregnant wife was due in seven days and wanted to produce antibodies for the baby, and the husband wanted to protect the baby and his wife.

At a Griffin Health vaccine clinic outside C.B. Jennings Elementary School in New London on Friday, a New London woman who is 36 weeks pregnant said she decided to get vaccinated because her doctor told her earlier that day to do so.

She said the doctor previously had said it was a family decision, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new data on Wednesday on the safety of vaccines in pregnant people. She said she would have gotten vaccinated right away if she wasn't pregnant.

At an Uncas Health District clinic outside Dairy Queen and Poppy & Rye in Norwich earlier Friday, public health nurse Jennifer Ceccarelli said some people getting vaccinated recently have said they wanted to wait and see how the vaccine went. She said one woman who has come to clinics but not gotten the shot is waiting for full Food and Drug Administration approval of the vaccine.

Norwich resident Charlene Bouchard said she decided to get vaccinated because she has COPD and her three doctors told her to stop hesitating. Bouchard, 67, said she was worried about side effects.

"They each told me that the risk of a side effect is a lot better to have than to have the COVID," she said. She was there Friday getting her second Pfizer dose.

A teacher getting her first dose said she was hesitant because of the newness of the vaccine and nervousness about side effects. But she said "there's so many regulations now if you don't have a vaccination; I don't feel like I have a choice."

Ricardo Millbury stopped by the clinic to check when he was due for his second dose, which isn't until later in the month. He didn't know if the vaccine was actually going to work but said with the delta variant, his father told him, "Either you get (the vaccine) or you get really sick."

Millbury said he did get a bad fever after getting his first dose, but said of the coronavirus, "Imagine if I really got it. It could've killed me."

The other benefit of going to the first clinic was meeting Marta Hack, whom he called a "blessing." Hack is a rapid rehousing navigator at Thames Valley Council for Community Action who has gone to a few clinics, and in talking to Millbury, she learned he was sleeping in his car. Millbury said he has been in recovery for 10 years and had to get out of where he was living because he was living near people doing drugs.

Psychologist: Listen without aim to convince

On Friday, Hartford HealthCare held a media briefing on how to talk about the vaccine with people who are hesitant.

"Let me make something really, really clear: You can't change someone else's mind," said Dr. Jim O'Dea, vice president of the Behavioral Health Network at Hartford HealthCare. He added, "These efforts at changing someone's mind are unproductive. In fact, in my experience it's counterproductive."

Rather, he said what is productive is to try to get inside what somebody else is thinking, which people can do by asking questions.

"When people are genuinely listened to and feel heard, they then begin to feel open to a different perspective," O'Dea said. He said wanting to learn more about how people think and feel may have the benefit of the other person saying, "Wow, you've really cared enough to understand about me? Maybe I'm open to some of the stuff that's on your mind."

e.moser@theday.com