The 6 reasons Americans aren’t getting vaccinated

According to experts, there are a variety of reasons: lack of access to vaccines, a refusal to see Covid-19 as a threat, concern about the vaccines’ side effects, little trust in the vaccines or the institutions behind them, and belief in at least one of several different conspiracy theories. Some of these reasons overlap and compound; for example, if someone doesn’t see Covid-19 as a big threat, they might decide the vaccine isn’t worth the side effects.

  The unvaccinated are at risk as evolution accelerates the covid-19 pandemic

The variants make vaccination programmes more urgent than ever. But though they may march on through the alphabet for some time to come, there is some reason to hope that they will not get all that much worse as they do so. They may be running out of evolutionary room to manoeuvre.

  Fighting Vaccine Hesitancy: What Can We Learn From Social Science?

Hesitancy comes from many sources. Common concerns include how quickly the COVID vaccines were developed and if they are safe. Many people have adopted a “wait and see” attitude in response to these concerns. Others have technical questions including if they should be vaccinated if they’ve already had COVID, if the vaccines will be effective against different strains, and how we will know if they’re safe for children.

  How to encourage vaccine-hesitant people to get their COVID shots

Four tips to boost confidence in COVID vaccines among friends, family members, co-workers and neighbours

  Why some people don't want a Covid-19 vaccine

Social media is rife with posts disparaging the vaccine hesitant – but these reactions to a complex and nuanced issue are doing more harm than good.

  If you’re unsure about getting the COVID-19 vaccine, read this

Experts break down vaccine development, breakthrough infections, and more.

  The COVID-19 disinformation divide: understanding vaccine attitudes

Scientists have developed COVID-19 vaccines so rapidly it has exacerbated existing mistrust proliferated by social media. New research by Edelman Data & Intelligence (DxI) aims to examine and understand the psychological motivations driving attitudes at both ends of the spectrum – from vaccine resistors to vaccine adopters. By understanding the concerns and sensitivities of each group, the scientific community can tailor messaging to improve vaccine uptak

 3 tactics to overcome COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy

Using examples from the US - one country currently facing a greater vaccine demand than supply problem - we have developed three recommendations for how best to use this theory to eradicate vaccine hesitancy.

 Biden’s Spaghetti-at-the-Wall Vaccine Campaign

The play-it-safe approach to inoculating Americans against COVID-19 may cost more lives.

 Can't Help Falling In Love With A Vaccine: How Polio Campaign Beat Vaccine Hesitancy

The mass inoculation of millions of American children against polio in 1955, like the vaccinations of millions of American adults against COVID-19 in 2021, was a triumph of science. But the polio vaccine had overwhelming public acceptance, while stubborn pockets of vaccine hesitancy persist across the U.S. for the COVID-19 vaccine. Why the difference? One reason, historians say, is that in 1955, many Americans had an especially deep respect for science.

 COVID vaccine hesitancy is showing up in unexpected places

The uniting thread is that vaccine hesitancy tends to have staying power in tight-knit communities where people can reinforce one another’s beliefs. What someone accepts as evidence is individual, Parrish-Sprowl says, but it’s also shaped by the people around them.

 Even Pro-Vaccine Parents Have a lot of Questions. Here are the Answers We Found

There is a lot of misinformation for stressed parents to wade through. With vaccine trials underway for young children, we talked to doctors about what the real risks are

 Free Doughnuts Aren’t Going to Boost Vaccination Rates

If you were really scared of something — a fear founded on rumor and history, that you could get sick and possibly die, lose your ability to have children, alter your DNA or be left at the mercy of pernicious government surveillance — would you do it anyway, for the prospect of a membership to the Public Theater? Or a free glazed doughnut at Krispy Kreme?

 Here's What Will Actually Convince People to Get Vaccinated

What doesn’t work, clearly, is pointing fingers and casting blame and shame. It’s the virus that’s the enemy, after all, not the people it infects.

 How to tame COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy: Edutainment and lotteries?

Increasing vaccine access globally is a priority to end the COVID-19 pandemic faster. However, the vaccination push will only be successful if people take the jab. It is known from the roll-out in high income countries that vaccine hesitancy is a significant barrier for vaccine take up and there is evidence building that similar attitudes are prevalent in many developing countries.

 She Hunts Viral Rumors About Real Viruses

Dr. Larson, 63, is arguably the world’s foremost rumor manager. She has spent two decades in war torn, poor and unstable countries around the globe, as well as in rich and developed ones, striving to understand what makes people hesitant to take vaccines.

 The Best Evidence for How to Overcome COVID Vaccine Fears

Social science offers valuable lessons about ways to convince those who are hesitant about the shots

 Vaccine Hesitancy is the Biggest Hurdle to Overcoming COVID-19 — What’s to Blame?

In short, COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy owes its rise to numerous players: history, media moguls, politicians, social networking outlets and even average people.

 Vaccine Hesitancy or Systemic Racism?

Minority communities and developing-country populations may approach health services cautiously – and with good reason, given the medical profession's history of inhumanity. But, by blaming low COVID-19 vaccination rates on vaccine hesitancy, the profession is effectively using this history to victimize the same communities again.

 What the Media Gets Wrong About Red-State Vaccine Hesitancy

Many poor, rural Whites have legitimate reasons to distrust the health care system — and real barriers to access.

 What to Say to Someone Who Is Hesitant to Get the COVID-19 Vaccine

Whether their doubts stem from anxiety around accessing the vax or from misinformation, here's how to address concerns with empathy and care.

 Who isn’t getting vaccinated, and why

A new report highlights why different groups are hesitant to get the coronavirus vaccine and what can be done about it.

 Why don’t some people want to get the vaccine? Here’s why

Left-leaning people wonder ‘what’s wrong’ with the unvaccinated. But what if their non-compliance isn’t that surprising?

 Why getting vaccinated for Covid-19 is more popular in the UK than in the US

The UK has world-leading vaccine enthusiasm. What can the rest of the world learn?

A doctor on 9 things that could go wrong with the new vaccines

As a physician, clinical researcher, and epidemiologist, I am thrilled with the vaccine data so far. The 95 percent efficacy of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines is unprecedented and better than any of us hoped for. But we need to be careful. We need to temper our enthusiasm with the acknowledgment that the vaccine is a weapon we may not be fully prepared to wield. A lot can still go wrong.

Addressing Vaccine Hesitancy Isn't A One Size Fits All Approach

The fact is that there are people from all walks of life and backgrounds who are worried about being vaccinated for COVID-19. And a message to inform them of the benefits is not a one-size-fits-all.

America’s Health Will Soon Be in the Hands of Very Minor Internet Celebrities

Local health departments are counting on lifestyle bloggers and fitness experts to get their message out.

Anti-Vaxxers Are Coaching People How to 'Refuse' the COVID Vaccine

Anti-vaxxers are flooding social media with misinformation about the development and side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

As a Doctor, I Was Skeptical About the Covid Vaccine. Then I Reviewed the Science.

How one emergency department doctor shifted her views.

Coronavirus vaccine: lessons from the 19th-century smallpox anti-vaxxer movement

The 19th-century invention of vaccination created a new national imperative for the UK to combat endemic smallpox. The risk of dying from smallpox for those who contracted it was substantially higher than that for COVID-19 today. Survivors gained immunity but often at the cost of physical scarring and long-term health problems. Vaccination and subsequent elimination should have been a no-brainer. Yet local and regional outbreaks persisted across the 19th century.

Covid vaccine fertility: Does the Covid vaccine affect your chances of getting pregnant?

"If you are advised to have the vaccine because you are clinically vulnerable or a healthcare worker, you are advised to have the vaccine and wait three months after the first dose before trying to conceive,"...

Fight vaccine hesitancy, not line crashers. Vaccination for one is vaccination for all

Admittedly, it makes some sense to begrudge people who seem to be malingering to jump the line. Especially when they’re crowing about it on Instagram. This one can’t have a BMI over 18. And oh, come on, “migraines” — those have to be garden-variety headaches. The resentment is understandable. Over the last bruising year, we’ve grown accustomed to supply shortages and grinding competition for resources. Shelves were bare of canned goods, toilet paper, even yeast. And forget about N95 masks.

Get Ready for a Vaccine Information War

Social media is already filling up with misinformation about a Covid-19 vaccine, months or years before one even exists.

How better conversations can help reduce vaccine hesitancy for COVID-19 and other shots

The aim isn’t to chop off the negative, but rather to have the positive reveal itself. This takes conversation, close listening, empathy and above all, trust.

How Black People Learned Not to Trust

Concerns about vaccination are unfortunate, but they have historical roots.

How Israel Successfully Combated COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

How do you counter false rumors about the COVID-19 vaccine? Israel has had some success on that front. It was the first to vaccinate a majority of its adult population. Getting there meant combating skepticism, especially among ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities.

How to Reach the Unvaccinated

In a polarized landscape with widely distrusted institutions, a more patient approach seems much more civically healthy: a mix of local outreach, public health guidance that consistently promises normalcy as a benefit of vaccination (and doesn’t withdraw it arbitrarily), and actually arguing with skeptics.

How we discovered a new tool to help combat vaccine hesitancy

Our social experiment showed the first step is empathy with the sceptical

It’s essential to understand why some health care workers are putting off vaccination

Early data on why health care workers are delaying the Covid-19 vaccine could help us end the pandemic sooner.

It’s Not Vaccine Hesitancy. It’s COVID-19 Denialism.

Reluctance to get vaccinated is concentrated among young conservatives, who are skeptical of the pandemic’s harms.

J&J Vaccine Pause Stoked Hesitancy That Threatens Covid-19 Vaccination Drive

The 10-day halt in administering Johnson & Johnson’s Covid-19 vaccine has made it harder to inoculate the hard-to-reach and hesitant, health officials said, complicating efforts to reach community vaccination goals.

Opinion: Vaccine Hesitancy In The U.S. Is A Peculiar Privilege

So for the people who say, "I want to watch and wait," I would like to remind them that their vacillations are reckless and cruel. They upend the sacrifices we have all made together to end the pandemic. By not doing your part to reduce the risks, you increase the risks for all of us. And that's a very peculiar response to this catastrophic pandemic.

Social media’s impact on vaccine hesitancy

In short, the rhetoric for encouraging immunizations on social media should emphasize immediate and personalized benefits of taking the vaccines, rather than long-term protective or societal benefits.

Suspicions grow that nanoparticles in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trigger rare allergic reactions

Some allergists and immunologists believe a small number of people previously exposed to PEG may have high levels of antibodies against PEG, putting them at risk of an anaphylactic reaction to the vaccine.

The Covid Vaccine Is Free, but Not Everyone Believes That

Concern over unexpected bills was one of the reasons respondents in a U.S. survey gave for hesitation about getting the shot.

The COVID Vaccine Myth That Preys on Young Women

There is no evidence to show that the coronavirus vaccine affects female fertility. This hasn't stopped a slew of social media posts from falsely claiming otherwise.

The next Covid-19 vaccine hurdle: Convincing millions of Americans they want the shot

America’s Covid-19 vaccine supplies are growing fast. Now comes the next fight.

Vaccinations are plateauing. Don’t blame it on ‘resistance’

By now, this historic effort has captured the vaccine-hungry individuals who are eager, well-resourced, technologically savvy, and excited to get vaccinated. But as fewer people sign up to get their shots, a dominant narrative is emerging: It’s because of hesitancy — too many people don’t want to get the vaccine. Some even call this vaccine resistance.

Vaccine hesitancy in the COVID-19 era

With the steady increase in COVID-19 vaccine supplies, hesitancy and refusal to be vaccinated is becoming a problem for high vaccine coverage in many parts of the world.

Vaccine rumours debunked: Microchips, 'altered DNA' and more

We've looked into some of the most widely shared false vaccine claims - everything from alleged plots to put microchips into people to the supposed re-engineering of our genetic code.

We Don’t Even Have a COVID-19 Vaccine, and Yet the Conspiracies Are Here

Even as vaccines for the disease are being held up as the last hope for a return to normalcy, misinformation about them is spreading.

Western Anti-Vaxxers Are Undermining COVID Vaccine Rollouts in African Countries

A well-organised network of international anti-vax accounts is pumping harmful vaccine misinformation into Africa’s social media ecosystem, threatening to undermine the continent’s fragile COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Why COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy should fall as more people get the jab

Current evidence suggests that, in the UK, vaccine hesitancy may be more difficult to overcome from now on. Younger people tend, on average, to be a bit less keen to get vaccinated than middle-aged and older people. And older people who have already declined vaccination could be the most difficult to persuade.

Why telling stories could be a more powerful way of convincing some people to take a COVID vaccine than just the facts

When we hear a story, we often lower our guard and tend to start responding emotionally to the characters. Parents, educators and religious leaders have long used this as a way of teaching. Governments could use storytelling to potentially improve COVID vaccination rates particularly among those who are unlikely to get the jab. Governments could add emotional health stories to their vaccination messages.

Why Vaccine Hesitancy Is Rising Among Young People

Seventeen percent of 16-29 year olds feel unsure about the COVID-19 vaccine – the highest of all age groups in the UK.

With painstaking effort, Black doctors’ group takes aim at Covid-19 vaccine hesitancy

Racism in the health care system is part of the reason that the NMA exists. The American Medical Association, which set standards for the profession, repeatedly denied membership to Black doctors — so in 1895, they founded a group of their own, “conceived in no spirit of racial exclusiveness, fostering no ethnic antagonisms, but born out of the exigency of the American environment.”