WASHINGTON — By the end of May, there will be enough COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. for every person who wants one.
There’s just one problem: a lot of Americans are simply not interested.
In this fractured country, vaccines are the latest front in the culture war, and those who politically identify as Republican are rejecting coronavirus vaccinations at a rate that has raised concerns.
According to a recent poll for PBS and NPR, 41 per cent of Republicans said they would not take a COVID-19 vaccine — and that number rose to 49 per cent amongst Republican men.
Only 11 per cent of Democrats said they would refuse a vaccine.
Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist at the University of Florida, warns that if too many people refuse inoculation, herd immunity might not be achieved, and the virus could continue to circulate in the U.S.
“We’re just going to still be living with precautions, we’re going to be living with cases, and we’re still going to be living with people getting severely ill and dying of COVID-19,” Prins said.
The sharp ideological divide is particularly baffling to scientists, who are used to a certain degree of vaccine skepticism — but nothing like this.
“What’s the problem here?” wondered Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to the president, during a recent interview with NBC’s Meet the Press. “When you have a vaccine that’s 94 to 95 per cent effective, and it is very safe — I just don’t get it.”
Conservatives, in particular, are being bombarded with misinformation.
Fox News, and its popular prime-time hosts, have broadcast vaccine skepticism, and even conspiracies, to an audience of millions.
“How necessary is it to take the vaccine?” asked an incredulous Tucker Carlson during a recent segment on his Fox News show.
Carlson has proclaimed the vaccine rollout is being managed by a big tech “oligarchy,” while claiming, “there are things we don’t know about the effects of the vaccine” — though he did not specify which of the three currently approved shots he was referring to.
Carlson’s Fox colleague, Laura Ingraham, has used her Twitter feed to promote the baseless idea that vaccines are part of “a huge gene experiment conducted on humans,” despite the fact that COVID-19 vaccines do not alter human DNA.
Young evangelical Christians have been using TikTok to promote beliefs that the vaccines could bring about the End Times foretold in the bible. American Catholics are split on whether certain vaccines are “morally compromised,” after several local dioceses inaccurately claimed that aborted fetal tissue was used in vaccine development.
Then there’s the Trump factor. The former president, who occasionally flirted with anti-vaccine ideas, has largely remained out of view at a time when his voice “would make all the difference in the world,” according to Fauci.
During an interview on Fox News this week, Trump broke his vaccine silence.
He called the inoculations “safe,” and “something that works,” as he acknowledged that his supporters are hesitant. “I would recommend it and I would recommend it to a lot of people that don’t want to get it and a lot of those people voted for me, frankly,” Trump told host Maria Bartiromo.
Of the five living former U.S. presidents, Donald Trump is the only one whose vaccination was unannounced and conducted in private. Presidents Carter, Clinton, Bush and Obama, along with the respective First Ladies, are all shown getting their shots in a new commercial encouraging vaccination.
The partisan divide ignores the fact that it was Trump, and his administration, who oversaw the Operation Warp Speed program. Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration while Trump was still president. A third approved vaccine, Johnson & Johnson’s, was developed under Operation Warp Speed.
Yet there are few direct appeals to Republicans, despite the cacophony of voices raising doubt about the vaccines.
“From the beginning, the response to COVID, and now the response to the vaccine, has had a political veneer,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University. He cautions vaccine skeptics that ideology does not impart immunity from COVID-19. “It’s clear that the virus doesn’t care whom you voted for or if you voted at all.”
President Joe Biden has suggested that the best way to win over what he calls “the MAGA folks,” would be to make the message apolitical, and focus on “what the local doctor, what the local preachers, what the local people in the community say.”
The Biden administration is preparing to launch a $1.5-billion campaign to promote vaccine confidence, that specifically targets conservatives, and includes support for local leaders and community groups with pro-vaccine messaging.
Cindy Prins believes the best way to counter hesitancy, is to address it head-on.
“I’ve had people that I’ve talked to and they’ve come up with some things that were not true,” Prins said.
In the end, she says the skeptics she encountered were won over by simple facts. “We were able to talk through that and help them make an informed decision about getting the vaccine.”