In late September, Pfizer-BioNTech announced that their coronavirus vaccine has been shown to be safe and effective for children ages 5-11. Many parents eagerly await the the possibility that the vaccine may gain emergency authorization for this younger group, perhaps as soon as the end of October. However, some rare but serious side effects exist for children who take the coronavirus vaccine, one of them being myocarditis, or an inflammation of the chest. Discussion over side effects such as this one add to the distrust surrounding COVID vaccines, which proves to be a significant barrier in the US for progress in vaccinating the general populace.
An interesting thing to note is that parents in some other countries have the option to give their children one out of two doses of the Pfizer vaccine. Officials in countries such as Britain, Hong Kong, and Norway have recommended a single dose of the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 12 and over, which would provide partial protection from COVID while mitigating side effects such as myocarditis, which is seen after the second dose when it occurs. Myocarditis may be more common among adolescents and young adults than previously thought.
The risk-benefit calculation for getting vaccinated is complicated by these side effects. For example, my mother and some of my friends' parents have heavily discouraged me from getting the COVID vaccine, despite the necessity of vaccination to prevent further spread of COVID and development of variants. My mother's justification was that I, as a young person, was less at risk to develop severe COVID, and should avoid the vaccine because of the risk of side effects.
The safety of vaccines is paramount in order to carry out an effective vaccination of the populace.
1. To what extent is the vaccine hesitancy in response to potentially harmful side effects justified? Is it justified at all?
2. Has the media done a good job of portraying the COVID vaccine? Has there been too much discussion of the potential downsides? Too little?
3. For those of you that have or know people that have vaccine hesitant parents, how did you convince them to let you get vaccinated?
7 comments:
I believe there is some justification for vaccine hesitancy. We tend to hear that one out of a million stories where someone has a terrible side effect of the vaccine and it worries almost all of us when we hear about it even though millions of people have responded just fine to their vaccines. As we have learned, the media tends to focus on the stories that produce the biggest ah factor so it’s important to remember that even though these side effects are serious, the media’s job is to buy our reactions. For every big serious reaction to the vaccine there are thousands that have reacted “normally” to it.
I think that the media has done a good job of portraying the vaccine for the most part. If people are (hardcore) against the vaccine, I think there isn’t much that can be done in convincing them, including the media. People will turn off whatever they don’t want to hear or see. I think that there hasn’t been much of a middle as far as the vaccine goes in the media; they only talk about how everyone needs to get vaccinated or how nobody should get vaccinated. Very few acknowledge that there is a choice. Personally my parents were very hesitant on vaccinating my sister and me but once they saw that even young people have been dying from covid, more specifically the delta variant, they saw that the vaccine was the only option to ensure some amount of safety.
I agree with Gabby that it’s natural to be hesitant about the vaccine when we hear about potential side effects like myocarditis, but if you research its severity, you’ll find that according to the CDC, “Most patients with myocarditis or pericarditis who received care responded well to medicine and rest and felt better quickly.” That isn’t true for many COVID cases: the CDC says that “The known risks of COVID-19 illness and its related, possibly severe complications, such as long-term health problems, hospitalization, and even death, far outweigh the potential risks of having a rare adverse reaction to vaccination, including the possible risk of myocarditis or pericarditis.” Therefore, I don’t think it’s justified to refuse to get the vaccine because of side effects; the CDC should be trusted. Like Gabby said, I think that when we hear about these side effects in the media, we forget about the hundreds of millions of people, the vast majority, that have gotten the vaccine and had no serious side effects. As we’ve learned, the media has a bias for stories that will draw a large audience and shock people, which explains why “New Dangerous Side Effects from COVID Vaccine” is a more appealing headline than “Vast Majority of Vaccinated Population Has No Serious Side Effects; Go Get Vaccinated.” So I think there has been too much discussion of potential downsides in the media. Although it’s important to be informed about them, people should remember to keep things in proportion.
COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective, and everyone who can get vaccinated should. For that reason, I believe for most of the reasons people have for their vaccine hesitancy, it is unjustified. I think most of the reasons for vaccine hesitancy is due to misinformation--of course people are going to feel a need to protect their loved ones when they hear about side effects like myocarditis from a news headline. But a news headlines won’t detail how rare it is to develop these symptoms, nor how “in the great majority of cases, though, the myocarditis and pericarditis were mild and resolved on their own” (https://www.vcuhealth.org/news/covid-19/covid-19-vaccine-and-heart-patients-is-it-safe). And of course the media is going to report on the cases of myocarditis because no news outlet is going to report on a high schooler with a sore arm for a few days, like what Ella was talking about. They’re going to report the freak cases which have the effect of essentially scaring people from getting the vaccine.
Myocarditis isn’t even the only rumor circulating -- stuff ranging from the vaccine causing infertility to straight up crazy conspiracy theories like there being nanobots in the vaccine is what’s causing people to not get the vaccine. It’s misinformation and I’m not too sure if it’s even possible to combat that issue so that people can protect themselves.
But I could also see vaccine hesitancy as an issue of trust -- whether people trust the institutions urging them to get the vaccine is an issue, because some groups of people can point to historical reasons for their distrust.
And to answer the last question, my parents were also hesitant about whether or not I should get the vaccine back in March. While I’m sure I could have tried to convince them with statistics about the vaccine's efficacy and safety, what ultimately convinced them was my doctor’s green light for me to get the vaccine. For most people, I think their doctor’s endorsement of the vaccine would convince them to get the vaccine. But if people don’t trust their doctors for one reason or another, I could see why it might be more difficult to convince them.
Ultimately, I’m not so sure what the right answer would be other than to urge people to research for themselves whether the vaccine is safe for them and their loved ones. But I also wonder how effective that would even be.
I think it is important to make sure the the vaccines are safe for all people and that getting them will not be a net negative. But from studies and all kinds of professionals in the health community trusting the vaccine I find it hard to not trust the vaccine. I feel that most of the mainstream media has done an ok job at portraying the vaccine in a good light but other platforms like Facebook seem to be full of misinformation. Even if Facebook eventually takes down the fake news the thought of the vaccine being bad are already in people's minds and will just accept it as reality. This could be a result of confirmation bias by many who are not already trusting of the vaccine and feel the need to justify their actions. Another thing turning people away from the vaccine is the politicization of the issue. The federal government has been trying to force vaccine mandates on Americans as a way for helping to lower covid. The issue is that many Republicans disagree with this and even members from Fox News like Hannity or Carlson are promoting the distrust in the vaccine. Many large companies have been trying to mandate vaccine for all workers like Walmart, McDonalds, and even Facebook. The hypocrisy of many Republicans trying to stop companies from mandating the vaccine is that it should be what Republicans are all about by keeping the government out of businesses but here they are doing the exact opposite.
While I think it might seem that it is less important for young people who are less likely to develop severe symptoms due to Covid-19 to get the vaccine, I think that this is a misguided view of the situation.
Getting vaccinated protects not only yourself, but the people around you as well. In order to help those in our community that are immunocompromised or otherwise at risk (elderly, pre-existing conditions, etc), it is important to get vaccinated. While a case for the average seventeen year old might not be that severe symptom wise, the people they could potentially spread it to might be more at risk. I think this kind of individualistic mindset is fairly prevalent in America, more than other, more collective countries, and this can be a downside in a pandemic where collective action is important to keep everyone safe.
I think it is understandable for people to be against and for the vaccine. The media makes sure people are aware of the side effects, providing background information on what is being injected into their bodies. CDC also provides network outlets for those who are opposed, such as https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/facts.html?s_cid=11353:testing%20positive%20after%20covid-19%20vaccination:sem.ga:p:RG:GM:gen:PTN:FY21 , which answers the public’s questions regarding their safety. As Ella said, the CDC should be trusted because its main goal is to protect the health of others. So, to conclude, the media does a perfect job of explaining the benefits and drawbacks of vaccines, and though the negatives can lead to hesitant individuals acting upon whether or not they should get it, there are articles to read upon to help answer and relieve them.
Vaccine hesitancy is largely due to the side effects, but often in rural/isolated areas. This is because communities are so small, that if one person has a poor experience with the vaccine, many in that area will become wary of taking it. However in a city, where the trend is to get vaccinated, citizens are likelier to get swept up in that. Also, media portrayal of the vaccine depends on which media source, as well as confirmation bias. If you ask an anti-vaxxer, they'll say that the vaccine is dangerous because the media they consume portrays the vaccine as so, but you'll get the opposite response from someone in support of the vaccine. As a whole, getting vaccinated helps protect you and your community, while side effects are generally minimal.
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