Vaccine Hesitancy Remains a Problem - Rob Horowitz

Vaccine Hesitancy Remains a Problem - Rob Horowitz

With more than half of American adults now having received at least one shot, 300 million vaccine doses already distributed, and more than sufficient supply available going forward, impressive domestic progress is being made in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.  Vaccine hesitancy among a too high percentage of the public, however, still stands in the way of reaching herd immunity or at least getting close enough to it to create far less fertile soil for the replication of more dangerous variants, and to ensure that COVID-19 evolves into a seasonal, far less deadly, limited, and manageable illness.

While there continues to be some progress in bringing down the number of people who are unwilling to be vaccinated, between about 1-in-5 and 1-in-4 Americans still say they are not planning to get the shot, and about another 1-in-5 are uncertain about it, according to a number of national polls.  A recent CBS News poll, for example, finds: “Overall, six in 10 Americans say they will get vaccinated or report having received at least one dose. That leaves four in 10 who say "maybe" (18%) or "no" outright (22%).”

Vaccine hesitancy remains its most pronounced among Republicans—particularly younger Republicans. “Republicans remain the group most likely to say that they will not try to get a vaccine,” a CNN poll documents. “Almost half of Republicans, 44%, feel that way, compared with 28% of independents and 8% of Democrats.” Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents under 50, “57% say they will not get a vaccine.”

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Additionally, people without college degrees no matter their party identification tend to be more hesitant.  As the CNN poll finds, “Among those who have a four-year college degree, 18% say they will not seek out a vaccine, compared with 31% among those who do not have a college degree.”

Not surprisingly, people who are hesitant to be vaccinated do not place much trust in the information about the vaccine supplied by federal agencies, such as the FDA or CDC. Seventy percent of people who are not planning to be vaccinated, “say they have little or no confidence” in government health officials. according to the CNN Poll. This distrust is particularly strong among Republicans.  In focus groups conducted by Republican pollster Frank Luntz, Trump supporters made it clear that the last person they wanted to hear from on the topic of vaccinations was Dr. Fauci.

On the other hand, people who are vaccine-hesitant do tend to trust their own doctor and short of that, medical professionals in the communities in which they live. In a recently published article in The New England Journal of Medicine, Robert Blendon and two other experts in public opinion on health care issues assert that a stepped-up role for local physicians is one of the keys to persuasive communication to overcome vaccine hesitancy: “We also believe that clinical physicians, rather than pharmaceutical companies, political leaders, or even medical scientists, should be at the fore of education and outreach strategies. Featuring clinicians in messaging is particularly important given that many people will not see their own physician when making vaccination decisions.”  Among their specific recommendations to reach resistant sub-groups, the authors note that, “physicians from well-respected medical institutions in Republican-leaning states should be incorporated into efforts in those states”. As supply continues to ramp up, surmounting the logistical challenges and enabling doctors to give the vaccine to patients in their own offices would add a highly effective component to the over-all effort to drive down vaccine hesitancy.

These public health experts also assert that along with providing the information about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines, it is essential that taking the vaccine is communicated as the main path to returning to life as we used to know it.  This doesn’t mean that some of the precautions that may still need to be taken shouldn’t be mentioned, but the primary emphasis should be on all the activities one can enjoy again if vaccinated.  This top reason that people give for getting vaccinated has sometimes been lost in muddled messaging by the CDC and others.

And we can all do our part by getting vaccinated, if we haven’t already, and sharing the fact that we did so with our family and friends as well as through social media.  “Knowing someone who has been vaccinated” is positively correlated with enthusiasm for getting the vaccine according to Kaiser Family Foundation(KFF).

 The single most important determinant in whether or not we will beat back COVID-19 now and into the future remains how many Americans will end up being vaccinated.  We are on the right path. Let’s finish the job.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services, and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.