The weekend vaccination rate dropped again this week, hitting about 3.4 million on Friday and Saturday. It's obvious that we have both the infrastructure and the supply to vaccinate more people, which means the slowdown is due to vaccine hesitancy. At this point, we just need to convince more people to get off their duffs and get vaccinated.
The CDC's telling everyone that the vaccines don't alter anything, that you still need to wear a mask, disinfect everything constantly, and not travel, and that the vaccines are very risky (except now it turns out they're okay, supposedly), is not the way to convince people. This has to be one of the worst sales efforts in history.
That's not correct.
People may be interpreting actions such as the J&J pause as saying the vaccines are "very risky" but that isn't what the CDC is saying.
If giving the shots away, and saying that the shots protect you from getting seriously ill from a deadly pandemic, and that you can now hang out with also-vaccinated friends and family like you used, all the while helping to push our society toward herd immunity to doesn't convince you, because having to where a mask in public buildings and still be a little circumspect about where you travel is just too much of a price to pay, then you're a fool. Simple as that. And there are grifters up and down the GOP who are more than happy to take your money.
I join you in wishing that we had more intelligent fellow citizens, but we have to live with the citizenry we have. Railing about how stupid they are will do little to quell the pandemic.
Tendentious drivel.
They could do a better job of explaining why 95% efficacy is amazing when you have barely any virus in your community, and not so amazing when the virus and variants are still raging... though I imagine nitwits would still find a way to be skeptical.
To me, here's the real sales malpractice:
At the moment younger people believe the virus barely affects them. Yet it now seems upward of 30% of even young people (and kids) who get even mild covid end up with what might be long term, debilitating symptoms (constantly short of breath, brain fog, fever, loss of taste/smell, hair loss, etc).
How long they will last is a mystery, but if this was yelled from the rooftops instead of brushed under the rug I think young people, facing a real chance at long term disability, would be clamoring for the vaccine.
Finished my Pfizer series yesterday.
Already thinking of going back to Sconny for the first time in two years for the Ryder Cup in September.
Congrats, Monty.
Welcome to the club!
Don't think the problem is getting off their duff's. The problem is, as you say vaccine hesitancy. Fear that something bad will happen to them, some illness, or other malady.
They should never have stopped the J&J vaccine. It was overly cautious, and taught people to worry. That the experts don't know enough.
There are certainly several camps of hesitancy.
I don't know, at this point I'm starting to feel like we should treat a pandemic that has brought our country to it's knees the same way we treated World War 2. Fighting Nazis wasn't optional, even if it was a significant risk to your health... we never would have won otherwise. By contrast the vaccine poses barely any risk, and individual decisions affect us all. It shouldn't be optional.
One of the editors over at TPM asked about modeling the pandemic with various vaccination rates (paywall). There are some studies out of Israel and UK, but nothing for US--as per readers. There was also a simulation, you can play too--ok, more of a demonstration, in an NPR article which is interesting:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/18/967462483/how-herd-immunity-works-and-what-stands-in-its-way
This morning, NPR had an article of who is not getting vaccinated (rural, white, evangelical). Some of it is outreach. Some of it is convenience. But apparently a good 20% of the population is a hard no. Maybe if Biden gave the vaccines away, they'd start to clamor to get theirs.
Vaccines are already free to everyone.
I think golack means if Biden gives vaccines away to other countries, then American hesitaters will storm into their local vaccination center and demand their vaccine now!
thanks.
20% hard no - those infected and survived gets us to herd immunity.
The statistics I see show the lowest vaccination rates among Black and Hispanic people. I don't know how you would find out the number of evangelicals: no one asked me my religion when I got vaccinated.
The same way you find out how evangelicals voted or what their shopping habits are or anything else in which the actual activity doesn’t involve asking or answering any questions about religion. Surveys. You randomly call up a bunch of self identified evangelicals and ask them “Are you vaccinated? Who did you vote for? Where do you go grocery shopping?” (or whatever you’re interested in looking at). And then you randomly call up a bunch of self identified non evangelicals, ask then the same question(s) and look to see if their answers differ in some way. Surveying may be becoming less reliable, but it’s not totally worthless, as businesses and governments continue to pay for it to be done all the time.
So it's the same way that you predict elections?
Our "second wave" hit the south in the summer. It will be interesting to see how things play out if the red states turn, well, red (high levels of Covid activity) this year if their vaccination rates stall at 30 to 40%.
Also note, the latest outbreaks have been more among the younger people (20-40's). They may not get as sick and are less likely to die, but will be "long haulers". The pandemic might be over in a year or two, but the consequences will linger for a while.
ok, should read "vaccination levels" not "vaccination rates"
We don't really know the incidence rate among those who develop Long Covid (I believe this is the official term) at that age do we? Sometimes the sympthoms fade over time. There is also some hope with therapy and it seems vaccines may help these people as well.
It's time to start paying people to get vaccinated. $250 or $500 to every person who completes their vaccination will probably be plenty to get the vaccination rate up to 80%. That would cost either $80 billion or $160 billion and would be worth every penny. I'm kind of surprised no one thought to put it into Biden's initial Covid relief bill.
I'm sure that the Republicans would have shot that down as economic coercion, taking advantage of those in need during the pandemic.
But it might have worked & I would certainly be for any such measure to protect more people, even as we are seeing people willing to buy fake vaccination cards. Hope that eBay, Etsy, & other platforms remove such sellers & that they & buyers are tracked & charged under whatever laws are pertinent.
I'm sure the Republicans would insist that those who object on religious grounds should still get the money. And the Supremes will be singing that chorus too.
That would take years to litigate and is a price I'd be willing to pay. In the short term it would get vaccination rates up which is all that really matters.
I think the restaurant sector ought to get into this and have vaccinators pass along a free lunch coupon to anyone who has got their shot.
Krispy Kreme donuts is offering a free donut with proof of vaccination every day for the rest of the year. In DC some dispensaries are offering free pot with proof of vaccination.
Nice. Maybe some folks ought to resiste the temptation to go to Krispy Kreme every day, though
What would be very cheap is offering a $1m life insurance policy for the heirs of anybody killed or permanently disabled by any CDC-recommended vaccine for any condition, certified by an independent medical board.
The smallpox vaccine killed 1-2 per million. Polio vaccine caused polio in a similar proportion. A lot of people have difficulty in grasping that two statements are simultaneously true:
1. Vaccines kill (a very small number of) people.
2. Vaccines are miracle lifesavers, and if you are offered one by your doctor or a public health agency, take it.
It doesn't that most of those people are "hesitant." Many are just those who are still anti-science, whether or not they are trump supporters. When we are more than a year into this, & some supposedly rational human being claims to not have enough information, so wants to wait, that person isn't being honest, or is a knucklehead, & a bad influence on others when "interviewed" for public viewing.
Many in medical science, not just the wrongly vilified Doctor Fauci, have been publicly testifying to the benefits of not only vaccinations, but the reasons for continuing to observe the other cautionary measures - yet some claim that the problem is that the reluctance is due to the public's need to be persuaded by trustworthy people - not politicians viewed as propagandizing?
And the dolts who have one shot, but refuse the second one, are also responsible for this irresponsible messaging.
It doesn't appear that they are all individuals deprived of a good education - just those without the ability or willingness to listen to reason & act accordingly. This is the new know-nothing America.
Failed to revise from "doesn't " to "isn't " - sorry.
Has anyone else encountered this "I'm in the Control Group" anti-vax message?
LOL. Science!
wait, who's controlling them?
CDC's vaccination demographic trends: https://bityl.co/6YBA
Thanks for the link!
Now, I'm not very tuned in to pop culture, so maybe this is already going on, but on the media that I do connect with, I have yet to see public service announcements that feature celebrity endorsements. While I can't think of a good reason why celebrity endorsements _should_ influence people's behavior, they seem to be hugely effective in many contexts. If I'm right about this, it seems like a serious gap.
Anther good tactic would be telling people that it will help defeat China and make America number one. Also that it will make them more attractive to the opposite sex. And that the local clinic cares about them as a person. Those are the kinds of things real marketing experts do.
Grows hair on your head. Melts away belly fat. Stiffens your ... umm ... resolve.
And then the guy throws the ball through the tire, while the woman looks on adoringly. Now that's marketing!
And yet in a lot of areas you still cannot find an appointment. Until we shift supply around to meet demand better I'm not going to sweat 3 million + vaccinations a day.
People have stopped crabbing about that on nextdoor.com in the DC area - supply issues have improved a lot with new mass sites opening up.
Same on nextdoor on UWS Manhattan. I haven't been looking, since I was vaccinated a while ago, but no one is complaining or asking how to get an appointment, so it seems like there is no availability problem, at least for urban middle class white people.
JJ mess women created with their birth control is a large reason.
Roughly, everyone over 35 has received one dose and is on schedule to get the second dose over the next 3 weeks. The remainder have a much lower risk of dying. The part of the market more motivated to get off their duffs has been processed, and we've shrunk the market down to those much less motivated.
I wouldn't worry about it too much yet. When our health care providers start calling us up and asking us if we've been vaccinated yet, then if no one listens to their doctor that will be the time to start worrying. Vaccines are still so scarce that there is no outreach going on.