Americans are getting Covid vaccines in disguise in case their anti-vax family members spot them

A Missouri hospital physician says patients are disguising themselves to take the Covid-19 shot in secret - so that they do not suffer repercussions from vaccine-skeptical family and friends.

Dr. Priscilla Frase, chief medical information officer of Ozarks Healthcare in West Plains, stated in a YouTube video issued this week by the organisation that a pharmacist who led the vaccine efforts mentioned that several people who came in to get vaccinated have tried to “disguise” their appearance.

They’ve even taken lengths “to say, ‘Please, please, please, don’t let anybody know that I got the vaccine. I don’t want my friends to know. But I don’t want to get Covid. I want to get the vaccine,’”Dr Frase said in the video.

She also noted that the people were very concerned about their family, friends, and even work circles’ reactions to getting vaccinated.

“Nobody should have to feel that kind of pressure to get something that they want...And that includes people who don’t want to get the vaccine as well as people who do want to get the vaccine,” Dr Frase continued.

She added: “But we’ve got to stop ridiculing people that do or don’t want to get the vaccine.”

According to HuffPost, Dr Frase spoke to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Thursday that the people she was referring to in the video “had some experience that’s sort of changed their mind” and came to their “own decision” regardless of what the people closest to them felt.

“But even though they were able to make that decision for themselves, they didn’t want to have to deal with the peer pressure or the outbursts from other people about them...,” she told Cooper, in part.

Missouri does have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country, with 41 per cent of the population currently completely immunized.

According to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, public health authorities and scientists have declared all vaccines available in the United States to be safe and effective.

The spread of the highly transmissible delta variant of the coronavirus has resulted in an increase in daily infections throughout the state during the previous week.