The U.S. has seen more than 498,650 COVID-19-related deaths as of Sunday, 2/21. About a year since the COVID-19 pandemic hit America, many have observed and experienced its impacts— ranging from devastating unemployment and job losses to its detrimental effects on public health and enormous death toll around the globe. Yet, the narrative surrounding vaccines has remained slightly disheartening, with caution in much of the media, fueled by public health officials and scientists, offering sentiments similar to this: “The coronavirus vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. Vaccinated people may still be contagious. And the virus variants may make everything worse. So don’t change your behavior even if you get a shot.”
Questions regarding the effectiveness, longevity and other “unknowns” related to the COVID-19 vaccine help to explain the careful and meticulous statements issued by public health officials and scientists. However, Johns Hopkins’ epidemiologist Dr. Kate Grabowski makes the claim that this “lack of certainty or strong empirical evidence is often interpreted to mean that we have something that is not true.” And, while prudent communication has led to “increased skepticism around vaccination,” Dr. Grabowski emphasizes that “even if vaccines’ effects on COVID-19 transmission are imperfect and temporary, vaccination will still lead to massive decreases in the number of cases if—and only if—there is wide uptake of vaccines in the general population.”
Currently, “about a third of the military has refused the opportunity to receive vaccinations,” with some citing unease in the “vaccine’s development process or timeline” in a Blue Star Families’ survey. The Pentagon has reinforced the notion of educating service members, likely in hopes of increasing the two-thirds of service personnel who have voluntarily received vaccinations.
With this being said, it’s important to note the large disparities on the impact of COVID-19 across America. Low income families, as well as racial and ethnic minority groups, have suffered disproportionately from the virus’ effects. In fact, the NBA, aiming to issue “PSAs” to promote a greater sense of trust in the science behind vaccinations, has been met with “player apprehension… consistent with those that also exist in Black communities throughout the country.” As discussed in our Civil Rights and Public Policy units, the history of institutionalized racism has long perpetuated American government, the American “healthcare system,” and American society. To quote Edwards and Wattenberg, certain groups of people have faced consistent discrimination— in terms of race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, sexual identity, among other factors, culminating in a “struggle for equality [that] has been a persistent theme throughout our nation’s history.” It makes sense that people of color are more hesitant, faced by government institutions who created legislation that their predecessors fought long and hard against in the courts, while only slowly seeing positive change. Indeed, “in cities across the country, Black health professionals were among the first to get vaccinated, in some cases publicly, at events open to the press.”
Can messaging be altered to influence public opinion surrounding vaccinations? Should the government play a role in targeting this outreach of communication?
NYT on "Underselling the Vaccine"
NYT on "Vaccine Alarmism"NPR on "Race And The Roots..."
Washington Post on "Half of the US troops..."
Washington Post on "A third of service members..."
The Daily Beast on "Anti-Vaxxers Aren’t..."
ESPN on "Sources: Many top NBA players..."
8 comments:
To some extent, I can understand the resistance that some people have towards the vaccine. The development could be described as the rushed or lacking a large amount of data on the effectiveness. Vaccines are designed to help a single person not everyone so it makes sense that people with the vaccine can still spread the virus. It at the same time, I feel that any help is better than no help. The vaccine can help slowly return to "normal" and the workforce. The benefits do out weight the cost. (the original comment wrong weight was used)
The answer regarding whether or not one should receive the vaccine is difficult to give. While I personally would take it, and believe in the medicine provided to us by scientists and healthcare workers, this is all still very new, and there is no solid evidence that it will have a huge impact yet. And there is no denying that peoples' fears of side effects in the near future are entirely possible. Given that COVID is a very new virus, and people have been working faster than normal to provide a vaccine, it's understandable why people may have their reservations. So, the only thing I believe could truly get people to agree with it would just be hard facts relaying its benefits. For now, I think it's important to get it to as many people who want it first, and then use the data received from that to persuade those who have been a bit more cautious.
It's justified to be cautious about the later, uncertain affects of the vaccine, as we have not had time to fully evaluate it yet. Additionally, a sentiment I've been seeing a lot on the media is that because the vaccines were developed so quickly, it isn't trustworthy. However, a large contributor to the speed of the vaccine development was their vast financial support. Typically, vaccines can take decades to be developed because they lack funding, but the urgency of controlling this pandemic , governments from all over the world have been helping to fund the promising companies during their development processes. Furthermore, it was earlier stated that COVID-19 is a "new virus," but I would say that COVID-19 is actually pretty similar to other coronaviruses, like SARS and MERS. Thus, these allowed for scientists to build off of past research (like the SARS vaccine) in order to further speed the process of vaccine development. There are many other reasons, like the fact that mRNA vaccines have a different testing process and don't require large amounts of the actual virus to be produced. Thus, I don't think that the speed at which this vaccine was developed should be of concern.
https://www.houstonmethodist.org/blog/articles/2020/dec/how-was-the-covid-19-vaccine-developed-so-fast/
I don't think that the argument that the Vaccine was made to quickly is a valid excuse not to take the Vaccine. We have never had so many scientist and different companies racing to come out with a vaccine, so this level of progress isn't hard to come to terms with. Also, all of these drugs have to be inspected and given the ok by the FDA. I think that with more time, people who are skeptical of the vaccine will likely take it once they see its effects on a large population.
I can see why people are hesitant to take the vaccine immediately when they get the chance to. I think that everyone's opinion is valid in a way, however, I think that being vaccinated as soon as possible is a chance worth taking. Building off of Lucy's argument, because COVID-19 struck the world so quickly, it makes sense that funding towards the vaccine was almost immediate, and a no-brainer for many nations. Our technology becomes more and more efficient over time. I'm not disregarding the fear and concerns of plausible vaccine side-effects, but one can also argue that we also don't know about the long-term effects that can come with actually contracting the virus itself. So with all this being said, I think that educating people about what we don't know about the actual virus and comparing that information to what we do know about the vaccine and its background of research and clinical trials would be an effective way that the government can help convince more people to put their trust in science. It may not be the most efficient solution, but it's so much better than doing nothing and letting people create their own uneducated opinions based off of rumors and unreliable sources.
I can understand how people may think that the vaccine was made to quickly and that it may be unsafe among other things. However, the vaccine is a mRNA vaccine meaning that the virus isn't being injected into you, and instead the vaccine helps a person's body deal with the virus. The reason I don't think apprehensiveness around the vaccine should deter people from getting the vaccine is because we have had the science to create a vaccine like this one for years and it may be new to the public but it is not new to scientists who have been working on an mRNA vaccine for years. Now, what I can understand is how people don't know the long term effects of how the COVID vaccine will interact with our bodies is very much valid but again I don't think it should deter people from getting the vaccine.
Thank you for these comments! It’s really interesting to read them and hear about the general agreement in the trust of the science and large funding that has gone into the creation of the COVID-19 vaccines. Just yesterday, another significant achievement was added to the timeline of vaccine development, through the FDA’s approval of the Johnson & Johnson single-shot vaccine. As we continue taking precautions and more individuals are vaccinated, hopefully, the U.S.’ road to recovery will include additional support and communication towards communities of individuals who, for their own reasons, aren’t as comfortable with the prospect of vaccinations.
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