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the following statement: “If a COVID-19 vaccine were made available to me this week, I would definitely get it.” Respondents were asked to react to this statement on a 1 to 5 scale, ranging from “Strongly agree” (1) to “Strongly disagree” (5).
Looking at the chart it is evident that vaccine hesitancy or vaccine acceptance are fixed mindsets. If you look at the graph, over 20 percent of people were not willing to get vaccinated in early 2021. This number is still over 20 percent in early 2022. If the reluctance was only about vaccine safety- in that case, the vaccine data would have changed people’s mind by late-2021. Therefore, the vaccination of billions of individuals
as well as messaging from public health agencies
seems to have little impact. This is a precious lesson
in social psychology for authorities who assume that entrenched beliefs can be easily swayed by safety studies or proclamations by experts. Perhaps, in the click-bait world, the rare case of vaccine-complication has more audience compared to the story of thousands of lives that have been saved. At the end of the day, much of this reluctance is about optics, feelings, and what goes viral on the social media. Ergo, for a more effective public health response, there is a need to understand the basis of such firm beliefs and the factors that sustain them.
Another colleague, Dr. Christopher Bush, provided an additional valuable view point as follows: Many
First Quarter 2022
Americans and other citizens of the world are pushing back on covid 19 vaccination. Some of these individuals state it is their right to forgo a potentially lifesaving measure. They do not feel it is their responsibility to
be a part of the mass effort to curb the worst pandemic since that of the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918.
In the United States the opinion of many in the medical field is that those who are unvaccinated serve as a residual pool that have contributed to the protracted morbidity and mortality of this terrible public health scourge. There are those that are of the opinion that personal liberties are the cornerstone of democracy but so is a need to come together for the common good.
It is important to add just a few lines about how polarizing the issue of vaccines and other mandates has become. Of concern is what appears to be a political theme that has been and continues to be part of this issue. This will require further exploration and thought.
My next question was —how does the American Medical Association (AMA) address issues relating to mandates and the legal aspects that sometimes come into play regarding vaccine and other mandates? I would be remiss if I said this was clear and simple. In fact, it is in no way easy reading.
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Detroit Medical News 5