- By publicly supporting the vaccination of the vaccine, America in America can help get more people vaccinated.
- Walmart, Disney, Uber, Lyft, the NFL and others help with vaccination and vaccination education.
- The Biden administration has also worked with business groups to promote vaccines and mask wear.
- Visit the Insider Business Department for more stories.
Walmart has administered approximately half a million COVID-19 vaccines nationwide over the past few weeks.
Mass vaccination sites have opened at Disneyland in California and at Yankee Stadium in New York, and Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, has already offered thirty stadiums of the league to be used as mass vaccination sites.
Uber and Lyft help transport people to their vaccine appointments, and Target offers paid time to employees who want to pick up the vaccine.
These efforts are a new pressure among U.S. business leaders at an important time: their economic future depends on people getting the vaccine.
Vaccine root
When the rollout of vaccines began last year, a predictable problem arose in the US: skepticism about vaccines.
Scientific evidence shows the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, but there are still some Americans who believe otherwise. According to the Gallup poll, the proportion of those who think vaccines are safe and important to administer has decreased by 10% over the past 20 years.
There is a section of the U.S. population that is completely against vaccines – a Gallup poll in November found that 12% of respondents “do not trust vaccines.”
But there is a significant percentage who are particularly skeptical about the coronavirus vaccine, citing the rushed development or safety as reasons for not getting the chance. In the same poll, it was found that 42% of people said they would not take the coronavirus vaccine if it was free and available to them, compared to 58% who said they would.
As Kelly McLaughlin and Yelena Dzhanova of Insider reported last year, experts have sounded the alarm that vaccination concerns could delay the end of the pandemic, as it could lead to gaps in herd immunity. On the other hand, vaccine use can greatly reduce the risk of infection: A study published in the UK earlier this week suggested that Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine reduce the risk by more than 70%.
All of this puts the US in a challenging position: the vaccine is safe and effective, but many Americans do not believe it. The slow deployment of the vaccine, coupled with this reluctance, means that the US is not achieving herd immunity very quickly. It still allows businesses such as theme parks and stadiums and restaurants to open or only partially open – and far away from anything that has been repaired nearby.
But there is one hope: by loudly and publicly supporting the vaccine, it can help American businesses get back to normal.
Getty / David Greedy
The vaccine will be an ‘exchanger’ for many businesses
Some CEOs already realize this. Walmart CEO John Furner told NBC News ‘Today’ that the company is currently administering 13 million doses a month and that he believes Walmart can play a key role in communities that would not otherwise have a easy way to get the vaccine.
Walmart also provides vaccine education to its employees and publicly announces the benefits of the vaccine.
“We also think it’s important that you know that friends, family or friends or others who received the vaccine are open about it,” Furner said in an interview with Today.
Furner said he plans to get the vaccine if it’s his turn and that he encourages his employees to get it as well.
Scott Kirby, the CEO of United Airlines – another company that depends on society returning to normal – said during an employee’s town hall last month that he not only supports the vaccine, but also believes that it should be mandatory. be for United employees.
“The worst thing I believe will ever do in my career is the letters I wrote to the surviving relatives of coworkers who lost us to the coronavirus,” Kirby said according to Leslie Josephs of CNBC. “And so, for me, because I have confidence in the safety of the vaccine – and I realize it’s controversial – I think the right thing to do is for United Airlines and other companies to need the vaccines and make it mandatory.”
United have since said it has thwarted a mandatory vaccination policy, but has not yet implemented one.
Disney chief executive Bob Chapek announced earlier this month during the first quarter fiscal revenue that the company had administered 100,000 vaccine doses at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had not been available to the public since March last year.
The closure of the park, coupled with the suspension of Disney’s cruise operations and the closure of other parks worldwide, had a serious impact on Disney’s business: the company said during its earnings call that operating revenues from its parking experiences and product operations “decreased significantly” from the previous year for a loss of $ 119 million.
Chapek said that if there were vaccines available to anyone who wanted them by April this year, it would be a ‘game changer’ for Disney, giving people ‘the confidence to return to the parks’.
Chapek stopped underwriting the vaccine at full steam, but his message was clear: the vaccine is what is needed for Disney’s parks to be back to normal to any degree.
Ben Hasty / MediaNews Group / Reading Eagle via Getty Images
A New Biden Administrative Partnership
Yet a handful of executives endorsing the need for a vaccine do not equate to a united pressure by U.S. companies to get the country vaccinated, or even to promote basic health and safety measures. Andy Slavitt, a White House pandemic adviser, told The New York Times this week that David Leonhardt has something to do with the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.
Slavitt said that what companies can do now is help with messaging. Masks and the vaccine have been politicized, but employers can break down some of the barriers, as the message may be received differently from your boss than from a politician. He told The Times that companies should ask employees to wear a mask, avoid crowds and be vaccinated if it is their turn.
And we can now see more companies talking. The Biden government on Friday announced a new partnership with business leaders and groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Round Table and the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as leaders from the black, Latino and Asian business communities.
The partnership aims to reach out to businesses across the country and encourage them to promote the value of vaccination and wearing a mask. The new partnership will also appeal to businesses to offer employees bonuses or paid off time to get the vaccine and mandate masks and social distance at their institutions.
While the government does not have a mandate if and how companies get involved, it will provide clarity on how they can help – and it appears that there is a lot of interest among U.S. businesses.
“We were overwhelmed by outreach from companies that said, ‘We want to help, we want to help, we want to help,'” Slavitt told The Times. “What a missed opportunity was the first year of this virus.”