Since the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine began last spring, optimistic ads have been chased by ominous research: no matter how encouraging the news, an increasing number of people said they would refuse to get the vaccine.
The deadline was dangerously fast, many people warned. The vaccine was a blow to Big Pharma, others said. A political maneuver by the Trump administration, many Democrats accused. The internet pulsed with apocalyptic predictions from former opponents of the vaccine, who condemned the new injection as the epitome of all the concerns they had already raised.
But in recent weeks, as the vaccine has gone from hypothetical to reality, something has happened. Recent polls show changes in attitude and a clear majority of Americans now looking forward to being vaccinated.
In Gallup, Kaiser Family Foundation and Pew Research Center surveys, the share of people who say they are now likely to get the vaccine has increased from about 50% this summer to more than 60%, and in a survey 73% – a figure which comes close to what some public health experts say is sufficient for the herd’s immunity.
Vaccine resistance is certainly not disappearing. Disinformation and terrible warnings are gaining momentum on social media. At a meeting on December 20, members of an advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cited strong evidence that vaccine complaints, as well as acceptance, are growing, so they could not predict whether the public would swallow supplies. limited or leave out.
But the improvement in attitude is impressive. A similar shift in another heated pandemic issue was reflected in a different survey from Kaiser this month. He found that nearly 75 percent of Americans now wear masks when they leave home.
The change reflects a constellation of recent events: the decoupling of the election day vaccine; results of clinical trials showing about 95 percent effectiveness and relatively modest side effects for vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna; and the alarming increase in new coronavirus infections and deaths.
“As soon as it is my turn to get the vaccine, I will be there in the front and in the center! I’m very excited and hopeful, ”said Joanne Barnes, 68, a retired elementary school teacher from Fairbanks, Alaska, who told The New York Times last summer that she wouldn’t understand.
What changed your mind?
“The Biden government, again listening to the science and fantastic statistics associated with vaccines,” she replied.
The attraction of modest amounts of vaccines also cannot be underestimated as a desire driver, something like the mandatory frenzy generated by a limited edition Christmas present, according to public opinion experts.
This feeling can also be seen in the changing nature of part of skepticism. Rather than just aiming for the vaccine itself, eyebrows are being raised across the political spectrum over who will get it first – what rich individuals and celebrities, demographic groups or industries?
But the harsh reality of the pandemic – with more than 200,000 new cases and about 3,000 deaths per day – and the decline of this holiday season are perhaps among the biggest factors.
“More people have been affected or infected by Covid,” said Rupali J. Limaye, a vaccine behavior specialist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “They know someone who had a serious case or died.”
Dr. Limaye concluded: “They are tired and want to return to their normal lives.”
A flurry of positive media coverage, including ecstatic attention paid to leading scientists and politicians when they are beaten and excited by local health workers who become the first to be vaccinated, has heightened the excitement, public opinion experts say.
Remarkable discrepancies between demographic groups remain. The divide between women and men has become pronounced, with women being more hesitant. Blacks remain the most skeptical racial group, although their acceptance is increasing: in September, a Pew Research poll said that only 32% of blacks were willing to get the vaccine, while the latest poll shows an increase to 42%. And while people of all political beliefs are enthusiastic about the vaccine, more Republicans than Democrats view the injection suspiciously.
The association between vaccine attitudes and political affiliation is worrying for many behavioral experts, who fear that vaccine adoption is linked to partisan views, preventing them from achieving broad immunity.
“We have seen growth among Democrats and Republicans over their intention to vaccinate,” said Matthew P. Motta, a political scientist at Oklahoma State University who studies political views and views on vaccines. “But it’s twice the size of Democrats,” who, he added, did not like the vaccine after President Trump’s declaration that it would arrive on election day.
A brighter indication, he said, is that two-thirds of the public say they are at least somewhat confident that a coronavirus vaccine will be distributed fairly, up from 52% in September.
The most pronounced pockets of resistance include rural residents and people between 30 and 49 years old.
Timothy H. Callaghan, a scholar at the Southwest Rural Health Research Center at Texas A&M School of Public Health, said that rural residents tend to be conservative and Republican, characteristics that also appear among hesitant vaccines. They also include immigrants and day laborers, many of whom do not have a college degree or even a high school diploma, and therefore may despise vaccine science more.
“They seem less likely to wear masks, less likely to work from home, and there is an opposition to evidence-based practices,” said Callaghan.
Resistance also arises from difficult access to healthcare in remote areas. In addition, the need to take several hours of work out of the inflexible demands of agriculture for travel and recovery from the side effects of the vaccine it makes the photos look even less attractive, he added.
About 35 percent of adults between 30 and 49 years old expressed skepticism about the vaccine, according to the Kaiser survey. Dr. Scott C. Ratzan, whose research on vaccines in New York with the Graduate School of Public Health at City University in New York echo findings similar to national research, noted that this group also does not follow flu vaccines . They are well outside the age range of routine vaccines.
“There is no normalization or habit for this age group to be vaccinated,” he said.
Blacks remain the most resistant to getting a coronavirus vaccine, in large part because of the history of abusive research on them by white doctors. But his willingness to consider this is increasing. In the Kaiser survey, the proportion of black respondents who believe the vaccine will be distributed fairly has almost doubled, from 32% to 62%.
Mike Brown, who is black, runs Shop Spa, a large barbershop with a black and Latino clientele in Hyattsville, Maryland. This summer, he told The Times that he was happy to sit and watch others get the vaccine while he was bidding on his time.
That was before.
“The news that it was 95% effective convinced me,” said Brown. “The side effects sound like the ones you get after a bad night of drinking and you suffer the next day. Well, I already had many of them and I can deal with that to get rid of facial masks. “
Still, he says, many customers remain skeptical. He says to them, “What questions do you have that make you suspicious? Just do your research and follow the science! Because if you’re just talking about what you’re not going to do, you’re becoming part of the problem. “
He sees progress. “Some people who were more militant about not accepting are quieter now,” he said. “The seeds are being planted.”
Another group that does not know how to get the vaccine is that of health professionals, who tend to have high acceptance rates for established vaccines. In recent weeks, some hospital executives have said that many of their staff members were hesitant. ProPublica reported that a hospital in the Valley of Rio Grande, Texas, had to offer some doses distributed to other medical professionals in the area, because an insufficient number of its own workers attended. A sheriff’s deputy and a state senator joined the queue.
But other hospitals say employee schedules for the vaccine are becoming a hot commodity.
For months, Tina Kleinfeldt, a surgical recovery nurse at Long Island Jewish Medical Center, a Northwell Health hospital, had absolutely no intention of receiving the vaccine until long after the science and side effects had been established.
Last week she was randomly offered a rare vaccination slot. Even so, she refused, despite warnings from envious colleagues.
Then she started thinking about all the Covid-19 patients she cared for and the new ones she would inevitably encounter. She thought of her husband and three children. She thought: Well, I can always cancel the last minute appointment, right?
Then she realized that the doses were still so scarce that she might not have another chance anytime soon. So she said yes. She became the first nurse in her unit to receive the injection.
Afterwards, she felt some muscle pain at the injection site. But she also felt elated, excited and relieved.
“I felt like I did a good thing for myself, my family, my patients, the world,” said Kleinfeldt. “And now I hope that everyone understands. Isn’t that crazy? “