Texas white Republicans are the most hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccine

Need to stay up to date on coronavirus news in Texas? Our nightly summary will help you stay on top of the latest updates for the day. Sign here.

Sam Webb says he is not against vaccines. His children are up to date with school vaccines, and he had a flu shot a few years ago, said the Weatherford truck driver.

But he will not receive a COVID-19 injection.

Webb, a former Army doctor, is among the thousands of Republicans in Texas and across the country who say they don’t trust COVID-19 vaccines and will refuse to get one – even though public health experts and elected leaders say vaccines en masse are the key to a return to the normality of the pandemic that has been plaguing the country for a year.

At the beginning of the vaccine’s launch in the country, experts warned that people of color, especially blacks and browns, may be skeptical or fearful of being vaccinated. But in recent months, white Republicans have emerged as the demographic group that has been most consistently hesitant about the COVID-19 vaccines.

In Texas, 61% of white Republicans and 59% of all Republicans, regardless of race, either said they were reluctant to receive the vaccine or would refuse it immediately, according to the February University of Texas / Texas Tribune poll. This is not an insignificant portion of the state’s population – more than 52% of the state’s ballots in November went to former President Donald Trump.

Only 25% of Texas Democrats said they were hesitant or would refuse to receive a COVID-19 injection, according to the survey.

Scientists and doctors emphasize that vaccines are safe and highly effective in preventing the worst results of COVID-19, including hospitalizations and deaths. No one died of vaccines, reports the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Some people may experience short-term side effects, but these effects subside quickly.

But the trend among Republicans is national. A Civiqs survey updated in March indicated that white Republicans constitute the largest demographics of people in the United States who remain hesitant about the vaccine, with 53% saying they were unsure about or did not receive the vaccine.

Meanwhile, people of color have shown greater confidence in the vaccine in recent months. In October 2020, 53% of black Texans said they would not receive the COVID-19 vaccine – a percentage that dropped to 29% last month, according to UT / Texas Tribune surveys. In comparison, 43% of Texas Republicans said they would not receive the vaccine in October, compared with 41% last month.

Most of the hesitation among Republicans stems from the mistrust of scientists and an unfounded concern about how new the vaccine is, said Timothy Callaghan, assistant professor of health policy management at Texas A&M School of Public Health.

“What you find is that, over time, conservatives have been more hesitant to vaccinate than liberals, which can be attributed in large part to the higher levels of mistrust in the scientific community among conservatives,” said Callaghan. “However, the actions of certain political actors in recent years have intensified these beliefs within the party.”

For Webb, he said he thought it was more about Republicans mistrusting the government, “and that was a lot of pressure from government officials.”

“I am not against vaccines,” said Webb. “I am against something that was launched so quickly.”

Scientists and medical experts say there were no shortcuts to the COVID-19 vaccines. Built on years of coronavirus research, combined with global collaboration and large infusions of funding, COVID-19 vaccines could be developed quickly. Each of the three vaccines approved so far in the United States has undergone clinical tests meticulously reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.

“It wasn’t just a new thing,” said Dr. Philip Huang, director of health and human services for Dallas County. “It was built based on previous research and development, but it is a major scientific breakthrough.”

Compromising herd immunity

Andrea Norman Harmon, a Springtown resident, said she does not trust the vaccine and is trusting her Christian faith.

“I didn’t even do any research on this, because in my mind, there is no way you can 100% convince me that you can tell me what the effects are in five years if I get this vaccine today,” said Harmon, a conservator. The research shows strong evidence that mRNA vaccines, such as COVID-19 vaccines, will not cause long-term damage.

Harmon said he does not trust government officials, regardless of the party. She will only have her school-age child vaccinated for COVID-19 if necessary for school, although her children are vaccinated for other illnesses, she said.

“If I volunteer and remain a volunteer, I will never get the vaccine,” she said. “If it comes down to – I have to accept to keep my job – I will be in a strong prayer about what I need to do.”

This widespread distrust in such a broad demographic is of particular concern to public health experts with the aim of achieving collective immunity.

“Whenever there are pockets or segments of the population that are not vaccinated, this creates pockets of vulnerability,” said Huang. “We want everyone to take this public health measure.”

Epidemiologists estimate that to achieve herd immunity, between 70% and 90% of the population needs to be vaccinated. Since vaccines are not approved for children under 16, this means virtually all adults in Texas.

“It is not just Texas, but we are looking at some other states where a large proportion of them are Republicans,” said Jamboor K. Vishwanatha, founding director of the Texas Center for Health Disparities. “It is a brutal fact – I mean, it will affect everyone, because we will not be able to achieve collective immunity. And with all these new variants that may be coming, COVID can be with us for a long time. “

“COVID does not discriminate against political affiliation,” added Vishwanatha. “[But] unfortunately, it was politicized from the beginning. “

Political rhetoric

Elected leaders, like former President Donald Trump, sometimes downplay the severity of the virus while denigrating scientists who ask for more caution. Trump, who received the vaccine, did it off camera and did not make a major public effort to get Americans vaccinated.

Tasha Philpot, a professor of political science at the University of Texas at Austin, said the message from Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been lukewarm in encouraging Texans to get vaccinated. Abbott received his first dose live on TV, but he also points out in his public statements that vaccines are “always voluntary, ”A nod to members of his party who reject the vaccine.

Philpot said Abbott’s decision to lift most of the state’s COVID-19 restrictions earlier this month also sent a message to his party: The pandemic is over.

“It is a signaling game,” she said. “I think if the signal came from a reliable source in their eyes, we would be having a completely different discussion going on now.”

Abbott did not respond to the request for comment.

Many Republican officials are trying to simultaneously appeal to two different crowds – with the Republican Party almost split in half in attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccines, she said.

“The last thing they want to do is upset their base,” said Callaghan, a professor of health policy management at Texas A&M. “If Abbott came out, full steam ahead, saying that everyone really needs to do this so that we can put the pandemic in decline and get back to normal and make Texas go back to how it should be – it could send a different signal to get more Republicans to vaccinate. “

Dallas Republican Party President Rodney Anderson emphasized that the Republican Party is not a monolith – many want the vaccine and there are a variety of reasons why some may not. However, Anderson refused to share his personal views on the vaccine.

Anderson said most of his fellow party members he spoke of cited concerns that the vaccine was developed quickly. He said he thinks those who believe in conspiracy theories around vaccines or viruses are in the minority.

But Anderson said Republican leaders like Abbott and others did an admirable job of encouraging Texans of all political inclinations to be vaccinated.

“State-level communication between the governor, vice-governor to encourage people [to] ‘being vaccinated, being vaccinated, being vaccinated’, has been appropriate and has been effective, ”he said.

Acceptance of the vaccine in communities of color

When the vaccine started to be launched, headlines and research emerged indicating that people of color, especially blacks and Hispanics, were more hesitant to get vaccinated than other demographic groups.

However, over time, these numbers have changed. According to UT / Texas Tribune surveys, Black Texans’ hesitation dropped 24 percentage points from November to February.

Among Hispanic Texans, attitudes toward the vaccine differ based on political affiliation. About half of Hispanic Republicans said they were against or unsure about getting a vaccine, compared with 34% of Hispanic Democrats who said the same.

Still, a higher percentage of Hispanic Republicans in Texas who were interviewed said they would be vaccinated than white Republicans.

The UT / TT survey did not receive a large enough sample of black Republican respondents to obtain significant results.

“Some initial research indicated that there was vaccination hesitation among people of color, but recent research shows that sentiment has subsided a lot,” said Vishwanatha of the Texas Center for Health Disparities, saying the problem is more related to access.

The feeling that blacks and Hispanics are less likely to want the vaccine is dangerous, said Vishwanatha, because of the disparities that persist. Black and Hispanic Texans already face disproportionately higher rates of death or hospitalization after being infected with COVID-19. And according to state data, they are being vaccinated at much lower rates than white people.

“By pushing this narrative that ‘blacks don’t want the vaccine in any way’ – it gets kind of confusing about the fact that there is this racial divide in terms of the dissemination of the vaccine and who gets who is really having access to it,” said Philpot.

Also noticeable is the difference in the root cause of why people of color are hesitant to get vaccinated compared to white Republicans.

“The huge difference between these two groups is this unique mistreatment of the black community by the medical institution, both historically and in modern times, which gives them an additional break from participating in a new vaccination program,” said Callaghan. “And that is simply not a reason why Republicans are hesitant to vaccinate against COVID-19.”

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin financially supports The Texas Tribune, a non-profit, non-partisan news organization that is financed in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in Tribune journalism. Find a complete list of them here.