Who are the “vaccine hesitant”, and why?
If you were to believe the mainstream media and smug social media vaxholes, it’s all about white, male, foil-hatted conspiracy theorists and “Karens”. Like all mainstream media narratives, of course, it’s a sneering lie.
The fact is that people who are leery of Covid-19 vaccines come from all walks of life, and they have many, often completely different motivations. Not all of which are particularly related.
A recent New York Times investigation identified two broad groups:
In one group are those who say they are adamant in their refusal of the coronavirus vaccines; they include a mix of people but tend to be disproportionately white, rural, evangelical Christian and politically conservative, surveys show.
In the other are those who say they are open to getting a shot but have been putting it off or want to wait and see before making a decision; they are a broad range of people, but tend to be a more diverse and urban group, including many younger people, Black and Latino Americans, and Democrats.
With regard to the first group, the Times clearly intends white, rural, evangelical Christian and politically conservative as a sneer: those dumb, redneck chuckleheads! But, as Russell Brand has pointed out, what it probably really indicates is that this is a group whose primary authority is religion, not government. Make fun of the religious as you will, but how is the behaviour of statists any less unthinkingly cult-like?
The second group is far more problematic for the media narrative. How can you call seriously, people who are normally pro-vaccine “anti-vaxxers”? Worse (for the mainstream media): how do you sneer brown, urban folk as dumb rednecks? Gosh, sounds a bit racist. (This is the very conundrum confronting New Zealand’s media, with Maori and Pasifika being the most vaccine-hesitant group: hence the ludicrous resort to narratives about “colonialism”; yes, the ghost of Captain Cook is stopping Maori getting vaxxed.)
Some vaccine-hesitant reasons are actually reasonably justified.
“I heard a news story several weeks ago now, about the Epsilon variant, which is hitting one of the countries in South America. So, I don’t want to get a vaccine now, necessarily, if I don’t have to, and then get a different vaccine nine months from now.”
Steven Harris, 58, who said he believes that the antibodies he has from getting Covid-19 are sufficiently protective.
Neither of these are unreasonable statements. It’s well known that getting flu vaccine early can be less effective because, by the time flu season arrives in earnest, this year’s virus has mutated away from the strain the older vaccine was developed for.
It’s also true that some studies have indicated that natural immunity from a previous Covid infection is a far stronger prophylactic than the vaccines. Still, I’d be pretty leery of the old-fashioned “chicken pox party” idea.
Younger people also have little practical reason to fear Covid: the hospitalisation and death rates of the young remain extremely low.
Interviews this past week with dozens of people in 17 states presented a portrait of the unvaccinated in the United States, people driven by a wide mix of sometimes overlapping fears, conspiracy theories, concern about safety and generalized skepticism of powerful institutions tied to the vaccines, including the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government.
Some of these fears may be (indeed certainly are) unfounded, even ridiculous. Others are not. To quote Brand again, who on earth trusts the government any more?
Destroying the media’s one-size-fits-all demonisation of “anti-vaxxers”, the vaccine-hesitant span the spectrum of political affiliation and ethnicity. The Times article features Democrat voters from New York and independents from Oregon, young people from Texas, landscape gardeners and hospital workers.
White people, who were vaccinated at a higher rate than Black and Hispanic people earlier this year, make up a larger share of the vaccinated population than the overall population, but that share has been shrinking […]
The daily vaccination rate per capita among Asian Americans started out comparable to that among white people, then accelerated when availability opened to all age groups, and now slightly surpasses white people. Black and Hispanic people were being vaccinated at a lower per capita rate than other groups at the beginning, but since April, the vaccination rate for Hispanic people began to rise above other groups.
Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans and Alaskan Natives, who make up a smaller proportion of the overall population, have surpassed other groups in total percentage vaccinated, but still include large numbers of unvaccinated people.
New York Times
The simplistic narrative of “dumb white conservatives” is not just another lie from the mainstream media, it is also counter-productive. As is the bullying from governments and corporations imposing vaccine mandates.
EU research from 2017 found that vaccine mandates did nothing to improve vaccination rates. As one medical scientist noted, “Mandates do not improve vaccine confidence; they make opposition to vaccination even stronger”. People who are suspicious of being bullied into taking a vaccine they’re unsure about are hardly going to be reassured by in fact being bullied into taking a vaccine they’re unsure about.
If we really want to improve vaccine rates, the media, bureaucrats, politicians and social media bullies need to cool it.
Just lay out the facts, calmly and professionally. Treat people like grown adults with agency and autonomy and let them make up their own minds.
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