Although access to COVID-19 vaccines remains limited, the poll suggests that some Americans want to wait to see how the shots work for other people before being vaccinated themselves.
But experts believe it is essential to get the vaccine as soon as it is available, to protect yourself and others, to stop virus variants in their tracks and to resume some normality.
According to opinion polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the share of people in this category of ‘wait and see’ has declined over time, falling from 39% in December to 31% in January. In February, the most recent survey was 22%. This occurred along with a gradual increase in the proportion of respondents (recently 55%) who reported that they had received at least one dose, or that they would receive the vaccine as soon as possible.
Black adults (34%), young adults aged 18 to 29 (33%), Hispanic adults (26%), adults without a university degree (25%), and non-health workers (25%) had the highest respondents in the wait-and-see group.
The most common problems in the wait-and-see group were the possibility of serious side effects; the possibility of getting COVID-19 from the vaccine, which according to health authorities can not happen; the prospect of missing work due to side effects; and the possible need to pay out of pocket for the vaccine, even though the vaccines are free. A quarter of the wait-and-see said a single-dose vaccine would be more likely to get their chance.
Susan Lopez, a hospital affiliated with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, says community members raised questions about waiting to be vaccinated against COVID-19 during every 12 vaccination outreach sessions she has done.
“I get a lot of questions about long-term effects, like months and years later, especially with regard to mRNA vaccines, as they keep hearing that it’s new technology,” Lopez told MarketWatch. Many people also feel overwhelmed by the technological logistics of registering for a vaccine appointment, she added.
Lopez said she gives members of the community who say they want to wait for her to be there the information needed to take the best for them. But she reassures them that no safety steps have been skipped during the vaccine development process, that all the vaccines have been studied and that researchers will continue to gather safety information.
Lopez stressed how important it is to ask people why they want to wait rather than accept. Healthcare professionals need to acknowledge that these feelings are valid, she said, while also answering questions and providing information.
About one-fifth of respondents to KFF’s latest survey said that they would definitely not be vaccinated (15%), or would only do so if necessary (7%). But KFF CEO Drew Altman compares the wait-and-see group to ‘convincing swing voters’. He argued that it should be a key focal point in efforts to boost vaccine trust, especially in black and Latino communities, where the most urgent need is to build vaccine trust and address information needs and barriers to entry.
He also predicted that many people could get their shots shot after seeing people they know being vaccinated without incident.
“Those whose minds can change more easily are in the wait-and-see group – and hopefully all their minds can be changed,” said David Abramson, a clinical associate professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global. . Public Health doing research on hesitant vaccines and not being involved in KFF’s research.
‘If that were the case, we would be closer to 80% [coverage] rate, and it will be great, ”Abramson added. “We will be at the herd immunity rate we want.”
The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency use permission for the two doses of Pfizer PFE,
-BioNTech BNTX,
and Modern MRNA,
vaccines, as well as the one-shot Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
vaccine.
As of Thursday afternoon, 64 million people in the U.S. (19.3% of the total population) had received at least one vaccine dose, and 33.8 million (10.2% of the population) had been fully vaccinated, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
‘I generally scare them about how bad COVID can be’
What is the rush to be vaccinated? To begin with, the longer you wait, the longer you are not protected from COVID-19, said Alison Buttenheim, a behavioral epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
People tend to worry about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, she added, but many do not weigh the risks of the disease they are trying to prevent. “It’s really easy to just focus on the benefits and potential harms and risks of the vaccine, and just ignore the disease,” she said. “We all misjudge our risk.”
William Parker, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago with first-hand experience caring for patients with severe COVID-19, says he emphasizes people waiting and seeing that they do not want to see him in the hospital.
“I generally scare them about how bad COVID can be,” Parker said. “What’s so exciting about the vaccines is that they are very effective in preventing these bad effects – hospitalizations and deaths.”
According to Johns Hopkins University, the virus has killed more than 530,000 people in the United States since Thursday.
A race to ‘starve the virus of hosts’ and ward off variants
Abramson said it was urgent because of the need to ‘starve the virus out of the hosts’. “Public health workers want to reduce the number of people in a community who are potential carriers and transmitters of the virus, to the extent that more and more people are vaccinated,” the virus population will soon begin to suppress. self. ”
Abramson also wants to quickly reduce the number of people who are ill with COVID-19, “and for every day that people wait and are not vaccinated, it’s another day that they have at least the chance of getting sick, worst case, being hospitalized and perhaps even dying. ”
“For me, speed here is really the answer,” he said.
The threat of COVID-19 variants also makes vaccination a time-sensitive target, experts say. The variant first identified in South Africa, for example, is more contagious and coronavirus vaccines appear to be less effective. A senior British scientist warned last month that the much-more contagious variant first identified in the UK could ‘overcome the world’.
“As the virus has more time and more hosts to communicate with, there is a greater possibility that additional variants will emerge, or that the variants currently in circulation will gain a more foothold in the population and will become a serious problem, “Abramson said. “It’s really just a math game to reduce the number of potential hosts.”
Lopez added: “Every opportunity we have to protect people sooner rather than later will be a chance to save a life or to save someone from having long-term COVID effects.”
‘A return to normalcy’
The CDC said this week that people who have been fully vaccinated can congregate indoors and be unmasked with other fully vaccinated. They can also do this with people who have not been vaccinated from one other household, and accept that no one in the household has the COVID-19 risk.
(People who have been fully vaccinated, ie those who had their second or only vaccination at least two weeks before, should still wear masks and physically distance themselves in the public environment, the guide adds.)
The CDC leadership, along with any additional guidelines at the state level, will be a way back to normal for many people, ‘Abramson said. “The faster people are vaccinated, the faster they will be able to benefit from changes in distance protocols, safeguards, etc.,” he said.
‘My wife and I have been completely vaccinated, [and] one of my colleagues and his wife were completely vaccinated, so we all had dinner together, ”Parker added. “It is perfectly acceptable once you are fully vaccinated.”
And from a herd immunity standpoint, Buttenheim said: “The faster we can get up to 70% or 80% coverage in the country, the faster we can pick up our lives again – and if that’s important to you, you keep vulnerable people safe.”
One altruistic reason to be vaccinated once the shot is available to you is to set a visible example for others, especially if you are from a group that is experiencing a high level of vaccination or possible delay, Buttenheim added.
“We’re really social beings, and we’re definitely looking into our social environments to get clues on what to do,” she said.
Three vaccines, ‘wonderful’
Experts have also expressed concern about Americans abandoning the vaccine they were first offered and waiting for a ‘more effective’ option – the result of varying numbers of vaccine efficacy numbers that scientists say should not be directly compared.
The Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines boast an efficacy rate of approximately 95%, but their trials were conducted before increasing concern about coronavirus variants, against which J & J’s 66% effective viral vector-based vaccine was tested. The global J&J effectiveness also obscures the effectiveness of the vaccine with 72% in the US and 85% against serious diseases.
Although the two mRNA vaccines differ in different important ways from the J&J vaccine, all three are effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death – according to social experts, this is the most important measure.
‘The information I provide [people] “no matter what vaccine you get, it prevents hospitalization and death – so it will be the best one they can come to first,” said Lopez.
Buttenheim agreed. “We just want people to get the vaccine on offer,” she said. “They are all wonderful.”
Also read: Americans debate what COVID-19 vaccine they want, but Fauci says to take what is available to you