We now have several COVID vaccines. They all work, they all passed security tests and are widely distributed.
This is a great achievement, but there is a problem: many people are not shooting.
Are they just ignorant antivaxxers?
No. As a recent Frank Luntz focus group, reported in The Washington Post, demonstrates, many people who do not get the vaccine are not skeptical of vaccines in general. Just about this lot.
So, maybe they are just Luddites from the Red State?
No. In fact, it is a worldwide phenomenon. Yes, there is resistance in the United States: Gallup reported in February that 34 percent of the front line health workers said they would not get the vaccine, with another 18 percent uncertain; less than half said they would definitely be hit. Only 65% of Americans as a whole said they would receive the vaccine.
But there is also resistance abroad. Reuters reported that only about half of workers in French homes are willing to get the vaccine; the rest prefers to wait and see if it is safe. Reuters quotes a union leader who says “there is a complete lack of confidence”.
Reuters reports similar figures in Germany. Also in Germany and Italy, thousands of health professionals have refused the AstraZeneca vaccine, although it is approved in Europe. In the German state of Saarland, reports The Wall Street Journal, more than half of health professionals scheduled to receive an injection simply did not attend.
PBS NewsHour reports similar skepticism about the vaccine in India. And NBC reports that thousands of US military personnel on duty are choosing not to get the vaccine.
So what’s the problem? During much of the blocking period, we heard the words “until there is a vaccine”. We now have a vaccine – several, actually – and in record time, thanks to Operation Warp Speed. Why are so many people, including healthcare professionals who should know more and care more, refuse now?
I think it comes down to, in the words of that French union official, “a total lack of confidence”.
Trust is the most important asset that the public health community has. Public health involves getting people to change their behavior and accept vaccines and medications to control disease.
For most of my life, this was an easy task: people trusted public health officials, in part because they had a long history of making people’s lives better. And, of course, people trusted institutions in general.
But now it is more difficult to have confidence. Institutions in general are less reliable, as a legacy from the Trump era was the revelation of how politicized (and sometimes corrupt) so many of our main institutions are.
And then there is the record of the public health establishment itself in the COVID era, which was unreliable. Just over a year ago, in early March 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci was telling us that it was safe to take a cruise, and experts said the masks would not be useful for most people.
Both claims were quickly reversed, but when it was discovered that the mask’s recommendation was only to secure supplies for healthcare professionals, Fauci’s – and the World Health Organization’s – confidence levels suffered a major blow.
Fauci also told us last April that it would take at least a year to 18 months before we see a vaccine, when in fact one was implanted in early November of the same year. When asked about herd immunity, Fauci changed the targets, when experts said the herd’s immunity limit was 60% of the population being vaccinated or immune. Then he revised the number to 70, 75 and, eventually, 85.
Why? As Fauci admitted, he was manipulating us: “When the polls said that only half of all Americans would get the vaccine, I was saying that collective immunity would take 70 to 75 percent. . . . So, when more recent polls said that 60 percent or more would accept, I thought, ‘I can increase this a little bit’, so I went to 80, 85. ”
People noticed, in part because he was bragging to a New York Times reporter when he said that.
Likewise, blockages have been widely prescribed, and continue to be, although the World Health Organization admits that they do not work. (A recent article in Nature came to the same conclusion.) Where is the science?
It doesn’t help that Democratic politicians like Joe Biden, Kamala Harris and Andrew Cuomo were expressing skepticism about the vaccine during the race for the 2020 elections. Sure, they changed their tone later, but that also doesn’t inspire confidence.
When you manipulate people, they perceive and trust you less. Do it better.
Glenn Harlan Reynolds is a professor of law at the University of Tennessee and founder of the blog InstaPundit.com.