Contagious Disease Vaccinations

7 in 10 Americans would be likely to get a coronavirus vaccine

That are the results from a recent Washington Post-ABC News survey.

It is pretty dispiriting that only 71% of people will probably or definitely get a vaccine. Is this because people are not scared of COVID? No. In general, most people are concerned. 63% of people say they are very or somewhat worried that they or a member of their immediate family might catch COVID-19.

Nevertheless, 27% of people would not get the vaccine if it existed. Why? Vaccine distrust is high. Of all those who say they definitely or probably will not get vaccinated, half say that is because they do not trust vaccines in general.

Creating a safe and effective vaccine is the first step, but making sure people actually get the vaccine–when it exists–is a challenge we’ll hopefully need to face in the coming months or years.

2 Comments

  1. “Creating a safe and effective vaccine is the first step”. I’m all for vaccines, but I think jumping the gun on getting a vaccine that has been rushed (especially in an environment that bad science is being widely accepted, e.g. the Lancet chloroquine study, the early belief that ibuprofen should not be taken for Covid, etc.) also carries risk. I’d wait a few months (maybe up to a year) to see what happens with those millions of people who get it, but I’m also in a low risk group. And that’s if human challenge trials are used to test effectiveness.

  2. I agree with the comment above — the issue is having a safe and effective vaccine. Verifying safety of vaccines takes time. During the time of SARS (SARS-CoV1) and MERS, scientists began to look at vaccination development. Efforts stopped when the infections died out. In both cases, they ran into snags in animal testing: 1) Antibody dependent enhancement (with increased infection of immune cells) and 2) pneumonitis associated with subsequent viral infection. Antibody dependent enhancement was seen with the failed RSV vaccine released in the 1960’s. Worsened infection of immunization is seen with the Dengue vaccine. Since SARS-CoV2 has 70-80% sequence similarity, there is no reason to suggest that creating a safe, effective vaccine is going to be any easier or go faster just because we throw money at it. In this time of social media and politicization of science and medicine, common sense and reason has been thrown to the side. If we start talking about using novel platforms (RNA base viruses, etc), my concerns for having appropriate safety testing grows . I applaud the people who understand a rushed vaccine may not be safe. As a HCW, I take the flu vaccine every year and am fully vaccinated. If forced to take a rushed SARS-CoV2 vaccine to continue the practice of medicine, I will retire.

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