A housekeeper cleans and sanitizes the room of a COVID-19 patient in ICU at Providence St. Mary Medical Center amid a surge in Covid-19 patients in Southern California on December 23, 2020 in Apple Valley, California. So far, about 53 percent of health care workers have gotten the vaccine when it was offered to them, according to a December survey. | Mario Tama/Getty Images

Early data on why health care workers are delaying the Covid-19 vaccine could help us end the pandemic sooner.

Some hospitals around the country are reporting that 40 percent or more of their health care workers who could be getting a Covid-19 vaccine are not immediately signing up for it. Other health facilities have had so many extra doses from employees who declined the vaccine that people outside the first priority group — including a sheriff’s deputy and