So right now our understanding is that
the number of Americans who plan to refuse a vaccine for COVID-19
when it becomes available is quite pervasive.
Depending on the survey, and how you ask the question,
somewhere between 1 in 5 to 1 in 3 Americans
plan to refuse a vaccine
once one becomes available.
Research that my colleagues and I published at The Conversation
a couple of months ago
suggests that the number is close to 1 in 4,
and I think that's a reasonable estimate.
Estimates of refusal have remained relatively steady throughout the pandemic.
So even as conditions on the ground have changed,
the number of people planning to refuse hasn't really budged.
And, you know, I'd like to talk for a second about why
that's potentially very problematic.
Recent epidemiological research suggests
that we need somewhere between 40 and 80% of Americans
to be inoculated against this disease,. whether that's by getting the disease or recovering from it
and developing antibodies that are stable and lasting,
or getting the vaccine in order to put the disease's spread into decline.
So if we're talking about 1 in 3 Americans,
potentially refusing this vaccine right off the bat,
and the possibility that the vaccine itself isn't going to be 100% effective,
Fauci is suggesting that 70%
is a potentially good number to try to strive for.
We're potentially talking about a very precarious situation
where we don't hit the number of people we need
to have developed antibodies to this disease
in order to begin to put the disease's spread into decline.
And that means a longer return, longer timetable to return to normalcy.
And it also potentially raises the specter
of seasonality of the disease persisting long enough
that enough strands and enough new strands develop,
that this becomes something that we have to deal with on a yearly basis.
Many of the poll questions,
at least many of the poll questions that I've talked about today
expressly mentioned to people
that the vaccine will be offered at no cost.
So we're seeing high levels of refusal even when people are told
Some preliminary research though from my colleagues and I, and it hasn't been
peer reviewed yet
suggests that there's many other Americans who are nevertheless worried about the cost.
And so I think that when a vaccine is deemed safe and effective,
and when it becomes available for mass consumption,
it's going to be very important for the CDC and other actors
to make it very clear to Americans that
this vaccine will be easy to get and that it will be free.
Otherwise, I think you could see potentially even higher levels of non-compliance.
You know, when a coronavirus vaccine debuts,
it's in all likelihood not going to be mandatory that people get it.
We, and the reason why I'm so interested in studying this issue
is because we depend on people choosing to get the vaccine.
That means that we're not only interested in who might refuse the vaccine
because they think it's unsafe,
but who might refuse the vaccine because they think It's inconvenient to get it
because they can't find the time or are worried about leaving their home potentially,
or entering a pharmacy to get the vaccine.
We really need to pay close attention
to those dynamics because the best examples we have,
for example, seasonal influenza suggests that only between
3 in 4 out of 10 Americans get the flu shot every year.
There's a possibility that the coronavirus vaccine that we ultimately get
will be administered in multiple doses.
We're going to be asking Americans to voluntarily get a vaccine,
potentially in more than one dose
in a way that we've never really asked them for before.
And so I think it's really important
that we try to understand how many Americans
and what their reasons are for doing so.
That's going to play a key role in informing the types of communication campaigns
that might ultimately prove effective in getting people
on the side of the vaccine and choosing to get vaccinated.
