The aff gets vaccines ready for distribution, that doesn’t solve because people don’t want to take vaccines – COVID proves

Disease X is not any particular virus, bacteria or other germ, but a term used as a stand-in for whatever pathogen will sweep the globe in the next pandemic. And there will indeed be a next pandemic, experts say. For the vaccine experts, one thing is clear: No matter the form Disease X takes, they'll be called on to get to work and develop the vaccine. Such a task could feel insurmountable, given the vast unknowns. Should they focus on particular viruses now to get a head start? Should they look at pathogens that so far are found only in animals, but could someday spill over into humans and cause widespread disease, like Covid did? Big and important questions, yes, but simple enough for this group of vaccine researchers and developers. They know the science. They understand how viruses evolve and spread. They know how to make safe and effective vaccines against them. But — as has become evident more than a year and a half into the U.S. vaccination campaign — one essential piece of information is missing: how to convince hesitant people to be vaccinated. "There's something about human behavior that we're still not really understanding," Dr. Nicole Lurie, U.S. director of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, told the World Vaccine Congress. Since the first shots went into arms in December 2020, just over 66 percent of the U.S. population is now fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "There's all this emphasis on science and labs. It's one thing to do that, but it's a whole other thing to get what you develop in the lab into people's arms," said Richard Carpiano, a public health scientist who studies issues surrounding vaccine uptake at the University of California, Riverside. Scientists at the World Vaccine Congress acknowledged that, for all of their education and training, one issue has remained frustratingly hard to overcome: the growing anti-vaccine movement. U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told NBC News that there is no doubt that vaccine misinformation is harming Americans, and could be detrimental in years to come. "It's certainly one of the issues we must address to prepare for the next pandemic, whenever that may come," he said. "This is absolutely critical from an emergency preparedness standpoint." If people are refusing vaccines in the face of an ongoing pandemic, widespread deaths will occur in future pandemics, warned Dr. Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. "If we continue to have poor acceptance of vaccines, we will see millions of lives lost in the case of another pandemic as big as this one," she said. Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, addressed conference attendees, saying, "If you really want to save lives, it's not only about making vaccines." "We continue to underestimate what I call anti-vaccine, anti-science aggression," he said, adding that until it's met head-on, "this will continue to haunt us."