While access to COVID-19 vaccines remains limited, the survey suggests that a portion of Americans want to “wait and see” how shots work for other people before they get vaccinated themselves.
But experts say getting the vaccine as soon as it is available will be key to protecting yourself and others, stopping virus variants and resuming a certain level of normalcy.
The proportion of people in this “wait and see” category has decreased over time, according to surveys by health think group Kaiser Family Foundation, which have fallen from 39% in December to 31% in January. In February, the most recent survey stood at 22%. This happened along with a gradual increase in the share of respondents (more recently, 55%) who reported that they had received at least one dose or that the vaccine would be purchased as soon as possible.
Black adults (34%), young people aged 18 to 29 (33%), Hispanics (26%), adults without a university degree (25%) and non-essential health workers (25%) had the highest odds of respondents in the waiting and visiting group.
The most common concerns in the waiting cohort were the potential for serious side effects; the possibility of obtaining COVID-19 from the vaccine, which according to health authorities cannot be produced; the possibility of losing a job 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 waiting attendees said a one-dose vaccine will make them more likely to get shot.
Susan Lopez, a hospitalist affiliated with Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, says community members have asked questions about waiting to be vaccinated against COVID-19 during all 12 vaccine outreach sessions she has done.
“I have a lot of questions about the long-term effects, like months and years later, especially when it comes to mRNA vaccines, as they continue to hear about their new technology,” Lopez told MarketWatch. Many people also feel overwhelmed by the technological logistics of signing up for an appointment with the vaccine, he added.
Lopez said he explains to community members that they say they want to wait for him to be there to provide them with the information they need to make the right decision for them. But he assures them that no safety measures have been bypassed in the vaccine development process, that all vaccines have been studied and that researchers will continue to collect safety information.
Lopez stressed the importance of asking people why they want to wait rather than take it on. Healthcare professionals should recognize that these feelings are valid, he said, while answering questions and providing information.
About one-fifth of respondents in the latest KFF survey said they would definitely not be vaccinated (15%) or would only do so if necessary (7%). But KFF chief executive Drew Altman compared the waiting cohort to “persuasive swing voters.” He reasoned that they should be a key focus in efforts to strengthen confidence in vaccines, “especially in Latino and black communities, where the need to build confidence in the vaccine and address information needs and barriers to vaccination access is the most urgent “.
He also predicted that many could receive their shots after seeing people they know get vaccinated without incident.
“Those who can change minds most easily are in the waiting group and we hope everyone can change them,” said David Abramson, associate clinical professor of social and behavioral sciences at the NYU School of Global Public Health. who is researching hesitant hesitation and did not participate in the KFF investigation.
“If so, we would be closer to 80% [coverage] and that would be fantastic, ”Abramson added. “We would be at the herd immunity rates we would like to have.”
The Food and Drug Administration has granted a two-dose Pfizer PFE emergency use authorization,
-BioNTech BNTX,
and Modern MRNA,
vaccines, as well as Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
vaccine.
As of Thursday afternoon, 64 million people in the United States (19.3% of the total population) had received at least one dose of vaccine and 33.8 million (10.2% of the population) had been completely vaccinated. , according to the Centers for Disease Control Prevention.
“I usually frighten them about how bad COVID can be”
What is the rush to get vaccinated? For starters, the longer you wait, the longer you’ll be protected from COVID-19, said Alison Buttenheim, a behavioral epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing.
People tend to have concerns about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, he added, but many do not adequately weigh the risks of the disease they are trying to prevent. “It’s very easy to focus only on the benefits and possible harms and risks of the vaccine, and just ignore the disease,” he said. “We all devalue our risk.”
William Parker, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Chicago with direct experience in caring for patients with severe COVID-19, says he stands out for waiting and seeing people who don’t want to end up seeing him in the hospital.
“They usually scare them about how bad COVID can be,” Parker said. “What’s so exciting about vaccines is that they’re tremendously effective at preventing such bad outcomes: hospitalizations and deaths.”
According to Johns Hopkins University, the virus had killed more than 530,000 people in the United States as of Thursday.
A race to “starve the hosts virus” and avoid variants
The urgency is due to the need to “starve the hosts virus,” Abramson said. Public health professionals want to reduce the number of people in a community who are potential carriers and transmitters of the virus, he said, so as more and more people are vaccinated, “it will soon begin to suppress the population. of virus itself “.
Health professionals also want to quickly eliminate the number of people with COVID-19, Abramson added: the worst case, being hospitalized and maybe even dying ”.
“For me, speed is really the answer here,” 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 infectious and appears to make coronavirus vaccines less effective. A senior British scientist warned last month that the much more infectious variant first identified in the UK could “sweep the world”.
“Because the virus has more time and more hosts to interact with, there is a greater chance that additional variants will emerge or that variants currently circulating will have more place in the population and become more severe.” Abramson said. “It’s really just a mathematical game of reducing the number of potential hosts.”
Lopez added: “All the opportunities we have to protect people before then will be an opportunity to save a life or save someone from having long-term COVID effects.”
“A path to normalcy”
The CDC said this week that fully vaccinated people can gather indoors and unmask themselves with other fully vaccinated people. They can also do this with unvaccinated people from another household, assuming no one in that household has a high risk of COVID-19.
(People who have been completely vaccinated, that is, those who had the second or only dose of vaccine at least two weeks before, still need to wear masks and practice physical distancing in public settings, according to the guide).
The CDC guidelines, along with any additional guidance at the state level, will provide “a path to normalcy” for many people, Abramson said. “The faster people get vaccinated, the faster they will be able to take advantage of changes in distancing protocols, protection measures, etc.,” he said.
“My wife and I are completely vaccinated, [and] one of my classmates and his wife are completely vaccinated, so we all had dinner together, “Parker added.” That’s totally acceptable once she’s fully vaccinated. “
And from the point of view of herd immunity, Buttenheim said: “The faster we can get to 70% or 80% coverage in the country, the faster we can get our lives back and, if that’s important to you, keep people vulnerable Safe. “
One of the altruistic reasons for getting vaccinated as soon as the vaccine is available is to set a visible example for other people, especially if you are from a group experiencing high levels of vacancy or potential delay, Buttenheim added. .
“We’re really social creatures and we definitely look around our social environments for directions on what to do,” he said.
Three shots, “all great”
Experts have also expressed concern about Americans transmitting the vaccine offered to them for the first time and expecting a “more effective” option: the result of an odd number of vaccine vaccines. topline line that scientists say should not be compared directly.
Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines have an efficacy rate of approximately 95%, but their trials were conducted before growing concerns about coronavirus variants, against which the vector-based vaccine was tested. viral 66% efficiency of J&J. The global J&J efficacy figure also darkens the effectiveness of 72% of the vaccine in the U.S. and the effectiveness of 85% against serious diseases.
Although the two mRNA-based vaccines are different from the J&J vaccine in several key ways, all three are effective in preventing serious illness, hospitalization, and death, the measures that matter most, according to public health experts.
“The information I give [people] it’s essentially, regardless of the vaccine you get, it’s to prevent hospitalization and death, so the best thing is that they can get there first, ”Lopez said.
Buttenheim agreed. “We just want people to get the vaccine they are offered,” he said. “They’re all great.”
Also read: Americans debate which COVID-19 vaccine they want, but Fauci says take whatever you have at your disposal