Several states are having a problem with vaccines going unused due to lack of demand:
Iâm wondering about a couple of these states in this map. Utah and Indiana pop out to me. As states that have been open longer to all ages yet have vaccinated less of their population by percentage. Are they starting to see the effects of reluctance
I wish that states could send out a daily update of numbers to every vaccine eligible person. I wonder if the reluctant are counting on others to get the shot - and really overestimating that % of people who have started or completed the process. For instance I just saw in Ohio that 38% of those eligible have either started or completed the process. Thatâs a little more than 1 in 3. Really not great stats. But I bet many people think the % is higher because âit seemsâ that everyone around them is getting it.
Maybe the reluctant would join the ranks of the immunized if they realized letting others do the work to make herd immunity wasnât even close to happening.
I was a child of the 1950âs. We got the polio shot in school. When the oral came out we were marched a block to city hall to get it. It was a Catholic school and I donât think the parents had any say in the matter.
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I wonder if part of the difference with the response to polio was the effect it had on children. If Covid were killing kids I think weâd be seeking out vaccines more avidly.
Iâm seeing reluctance and its effect in my little circle of friends. Most got the vax. A few refuse and give various reasons, none really medical. But now the vaccinated want to get together and do not want the anti vax to join. Can we meet? Outside? Six feet apart? Or will this blow us apart?
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Yep. It seems that the states that opened up the earliest have the most reluctance. They may have jumped ahead early, but now are stalling. Thatâs what happened in our area. We were well ahead of the state average in the beginning. We stalled out long ago and our first dose percentage falls further behind each day. Iâve noticed this week that the state average jumps ~0.4% of the population each day. We are at 0.1% - which I suppose is better than none. But, weâve been at a first dose vaccinated of ~35% for a long time and the state is now > 40%.
I bet my area wonât get to 50%, maybe not even 40%. I guess we have to rely on people getting sick to reach herd immunity. We only have 10% confirmed. However, our death rate is over 3% and our % positivity usually is between 5-10% with higher peaks, so maybe 30% actual? But some of those overlap the vaccinated. Who knows really.
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Though the polio vaccine rollout experienced shortages and a serious production issue with vaccine produced by Cutter Laboratories that caused hundreds of cases of vaccine-related infections:
The American public was deeply invested in fighting polio, with 300,000 volunteers from all walks of life helping to complete the Salk vaccine trial in 1954, a massive and unprecedented undertaking. At over 200 test sites nationwide, volunteers inoculated nearly 2 million children, some with the real vaccine and others with a placebo as part of the first double-blind vaccine trial in American history.
On April 12, 1955, every American newspaper and TV set jubilantly announced that Jonas Salkâs polio vaccine was a success. Just three years earlier, during the worst polio outbreak in U.S. history, 57,000 people were infected, 21,000 were paralyzed and 3,145 died, most of them children. Pools and movie theaters were shuttered, and panicked parents kept their kids at home, haunted by black-and-white images of toddlers in leg braces and rows of infants sealed in iron lungs.
Nationwide, news of the Salk vaccine was greeted with tears of joy and relief. Even the usually stoic President Dwight D. Eisenhowerâs voice broke when expressing his gratitude to Salk in a Rose Garden ceremony, writes historian David Oshinsky in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 2005 book, Polio: An American Story. âI have no words to thank you,â said Eisenhower, himself a father and grandfather. âI am very, very happy.â
âThe whole nation was united behind this search for a vaccine,â says Dr. Rahul Gupta, chief medical and health officer at the March of Dimes. âIt had as much to do with community alignment and engagement as it did with science.â
I read Oshinskyâs book and John Barryâs The Great Influenza over the summer. My sad takeway was, weâve done this before with so many lessons learned that just seem to have vanished. I highly recommend both books; they read like current events.
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I have one reluctant daughter and one lazy daughter. I think the reluctant one will get one now that there are drive up vaccination clinics where no appointments are needed and because sheâs taking a professional exam tomorrow and couldnât risk being sick for it.
The lazy one will get a vaccine once her state makes it beyond easy for her - a clinic as sheâs walking by, a vaccination day at her jobâŠ
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They are not concerned about getting actual COVID-19?
If you were asking me, no, not afraid of covid. The lazy one tested positive at Christmas and didnât have any symptoms at all. She wants to go to a big 4th of July event and I told her she has to get vaccinated before she can go.
The other one is not anti vax, but anti pain and doesnât like shots. She makes a big deal about it and then if she has to get one says something like âIs that all?â I think sheâll get one when sheâs required to to attend a concert, travel internationally, etc. Sheâs going to 4 weddings this year, all in Florida, so I hope there will be some pressure from her boyfriend and peers.
While people like talking about âthe childrenâ, and they look good on the ads, the USA does not have a good history in actually providing healthcare for kids.
The difference is that Polio was SCARY. People are a lot more afraid of living in an iron lung than of dying. Polio victims were also very visible and had very clear indicators - from iron lungs to withered limbs.
Though in regards to children, there may be the issue that parents whose kid got polio would then need to spend the rest of their lives dealing with a kid who has physical disabilities. That is also a more frightening prospect than simply dying from a disease.
COVID is out of sight, and the victims either die or just look sickly, and people can choose to ignore them and therefore the danger.
There also wasnât a movement to purposefully deny that Polio existed, or that âit wasnât so badâ. A substantial segment of the population is invested emotionally in denying that there even is a pandemic going on.
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My friends say no and no, that does not make sense. Well, one already got it. She was taking no precautions, so no surprise she got sick. She now says she likely will get the vax but is not hurryingâlike twoâs lazy D. The other? She can give an answer that mentions health and allergies but I suspect she sees it as political. She has said she thinks the pandemic is overhyped and no big deal. (Damn media, she says)
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I have a friend who is vaccine reluctant, even though her son and daughter-in-law were severely affected by the virus. She posted on Facebook this long piece of nonsense about how we just need to boost our immune systems to protect us against COVID. I asked if she planned to get vaccinated, and she wrote she is waiting for one that her doctor has recommended. I had never heard of it. Hereâs a link: Novavax targets May approval for COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S. Her daughter is in the health industry. Her reply to her motherâs post: âHAHAHAHAHA this is so stupid. Youâre so uneducated about viruses>â I restrained myself from âlikingâ that reply.
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A pediatrician I loosely know was sharing (with permission) the story of a teen patient who is at high risk for bad side effects if contracting COVID and his young mother who was vaccine reluctant. The doc was discussing it and asked the mom if she was open to talking about her reluctance. Turns out the mom had received some bad information. The doc took the time to show mom proven evidence and debunk the false info. Mom and the doc made an appt for mom right in the pediatric exam room together with momâs blessing. The mom contacted the doc after getting her shot and said she is now advocating for others who are vaccine reluctant to get correct facts. She has coined her journey #fearfultofearless. Because of the time that doc took, both mom and son are safer today.
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@MaineLonghorn , too bad your friend doesnât understand that the way we boost our immune systems-------------is to get vaccines!!!
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The Novavax vaccine uses lipid nanoparticles with spike proteins plus an adjuvant. It can be stored at refrigerator temperatures and requires two doses.
I.e. it is different from the mRNA and viral carrier vaccines, and most vaccines against other viruses.
It is not clear who one would want to wait for it unless one had allergy problems with the currently available ones.
My friend goes to a Lyme doctor (donât get me started on how I feel about thatâŠ) and he is the one who recommended that she wait. I just canât talk to her about it. We both get too upset at the other! She will not listen to facts.
It appears Novavax might give decent immunity against some of the variants. But who knows?
But instead of waiting, why not get what you can now (which likely provides at least some protection against the variants of concern), and get the booster against the variants later when available?
Novavax did mention very high effectiveness against B.1.1.7 but not as high against B.1.351, which seems similar to other vaccines.
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Iâm thrilled. My sibling was not going to get the vax at all, but got her first one when she happened to be in a pharmacy and they had two extra, so offered her one of them. Iâve no idea what coaxing was needed or if she just didnât want to say no on the spot. She had bad side effects for a couple of days (Moderna) and said she absolutely wasnât going back for the second. I figured at least one was better than none.
But now she texted me her upcoming schedule and the second one is on it! Itâs not a calendar she might ignore, it was a typed out text. Good for her!
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