As for the coronavirus vaccine, Mississippi residents have a plethora of options. On Thursday, there were more than 73,000 slots on the state’s schedule website, up from 68,000 on Tuesday.
In some ways, the increasing number of appointments in Mississippi is something to celebrate: it reflects the increasing supply of incentives that states in the country are eligible for anyone over 16.
But public health experts say the accumulation of unclaimed appointments in Mississippi exposes something more worrying: the large number of people reluctant to be vaccinated.
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“It’s time to do the hard work needed to overcome the hesitation we are experiencing,” said Dr. Obie McNair, a practitioner of internal medicine in Jackson, the state capital, said. There are many vaccinations, but not enough.
Although access is still a problem in rural Mississippi, experts say the state – one of the first to be eligible for all adults three weeks ago – could be a harbinger of what most of the country in the coming weeks are coming up because increasing inventory is making it possible for most Americans who want the vaccine to be able to make appointments easily.
The hesitation has national implications. Experts say between 70% and 90% of all Americans need to be vaccinated for the country to achieve herd immunity, the point at which the virus can no longer spread through the population.
In terms of vaccination rates, Mississippi still has a way to go, with just a quarter of all residents receiving at least one dose, compared to the nationwide average of 33%, according to state data. Other southern states, including Tennessee, Arkansas, Alabama, and Georgia, have similar vaccination rates.
The demographics of Mississippi more closely explain why hesitation can be particularly pronounced. The state agrees reliably with Republicans, a group that is very skeptical about the coronavirus vaccine. Nearly half of all Republican men and 40% of Republicans in general said they have no plans to be vaccinated, according to recent surveys. These figures have barely broken in the months since vaccines first became available. In contrast, only 4% of Democrats said they would not get the vaccine.
Another factor in the state’s low vaccination rate may be the large black community of Mississippi, which makes up 38% of the state’s population, but according to state data, makes up 31% of the doses. Vaccine hesitation remains relatively high among African Americans, although doubts and mistrust – largely linked to government failure such as the notorious experiments with Tuskegee syphilis – have declined significantly in recent months.
According to a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation released last week, about 55% of black adults said they would be vaccinated soon, with 14 percentage points from February, a rate approaching 61% of Spaniards, and whites, at 64%.
A number of other heavy Republican states are also finding their own doses. On Thursday, Oklahoma officials, who delivered at least one dose to 34 percent of its residents, announced they were eligible for out-of-state residents, and in recent weeks Republican governors in Ohio and Georgia have expressed concern about the lack of vaccine demand among them. residents.
Tim Callaghan, an assistant professor at the Texas A&M University School of Public Health and an expert on vaccine skepticism, said more research is needed to determine the reasons behind Mississippi’s declining demand for vaccine, but that states with large rural populations, Republican voters, and African Americans. was probably the first to confront the problem. “If you want to see the vaccine hesitate to emerge, it will be in red states like Mississippi,” he said.
Mississippi officials are well aware of the challenge. Government Tate Reeves held a news conference on Tuesday with a panel of medical experts trying to dispel the misinformation surrounding the vaccines. They tried to explain the vaccine development process, refuted the allegations that the vaccine could cause miscarriages, and recounted their own personal experiences after being given the chance.
“I had about 18 hours of turmoil,” Reeves said, describing the mild, bad symptoms he experienced after his second injection. “But I could go on and on, and I feel much better about waking up every day knowing I’ve been vaccinated.”
Access is still a challenge in the states of Mississippi, especially among African Americans who live far from the vaccination sites in urban areas, with about half of the doses administered by the state. The scheduling system was also frustrating for the poor and for older people, who often did not have access to the internet to make appointments or transport to bring them to far-reaching vaccination sites.
“We need to take the vaccines to the people, and to pop-up locations that do not require internet or registration,” said Pam Chatman, founder of Boss Lady Workforce Transportation, a system of minibuses that transported. residents in the Mississippi Delta to massive vaccination sites.
Demand among African Americans remains strong, she said, noting long queues formed outside a tent in Indianola, a small town in the Delta, this week, where the single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine is being offered. . (The tents with the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, which require two doses, were almost empty.)
But the hesitation abounds. Dr. Vernon Rayford, a physician for internal medicine in Tupelo, said he was frustrated by patients who cited various reasons for rejecting the vaccine. They claim it will give them COVID-19 or make them infertile, and they are concerned about unknown consequences that may occur decades later. “I heard some bad theories,” he said.
Rayford, who sees patients of all races, said he noticed subtle differences in skepticism: African Americans express distrust in the health care system, while whites express a more amorphous distrust in government. “It’s like the line of ‘Anna Karenina,'” he said. ” All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. ‘”
Dr. Brian Castrucci, president of the de Beaumont Foundation, which focuses on public health, has worked on ways to allay such fears. Castrucci, an epidemiologist, is particularly concerned about young conservatives aged 18 to 34; he cited a recent survey which found that 55% of college-educated Republican women under the age of 49 would not be vaccinated.
“His polls like this keep me awake at night,” he said.
According to him, the biggest obstacles to greater acceptance of vaccines are the misinformation that thrives on social media and the mixed messages from Republican governors that leave people confused.
“By easing COVID restrictions, elected leaders in states like Florida, Mississippi, Texas and Georgia are printing stories about coronavirus that work against a story that promotes the urgency of vaccinations,” he said. “And unfortunately, our vaccine campaigns are being undone late at night by Facebook and Twitter and Instagram.”
To date, health officials in Mississippi have focused much of their vaccination efforts against African-American and Hispanic residents through partnerships with churches and health clinics. Reeves, a Republican, has so far not wanted to single out skepticism among white conservatives in the state, but health officials said they plan to address the issue through Facebook and Zoom meetings with local organizations.
Public health experts say the necessary messages from doctors, religious leaders and other people trusted in a particular community are well designed. Dr. Thomas Friedan, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, who participated in a focus group with Trump voters not offered vaccines and organized by the de Beaumont Foundation last month. factual information without being read or belittled.
“There is no one right way to communicate about vaccines, but you do need multiple messages with multiple messengers,” Friedan said. He leads the group of health advocates, Resolve to Save Lives. “And people do not want to hear from politicians.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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