Nobody will get the vaccines – COVID proves

But so far this year, just 14 percent of adults have received a dose of the new vaccine formulation that became available in September — compared to 28 percent who have gotten a flu shot. This raises a question that would have seemed unthinkable three years ago: What if we make a miraculous vaccine and nobody wants it? Ever since that first shot, the public’s interest in subsequent Covid-19 vaccines has been steadily dropping. Less than 70 percent of the US finished their initial two-dose vaccine series. Less than 20 percent of the country received last year’s bivalent booster shot. Experts say the public’s disinterest in the latest Covid shots is likely a combination of poor messaging from authorities, a diminishing fear about a virus that three years ago was wholly unknown, and the political polarization of the pandemic itself. But whatever the reasons, that vaccine ambivalence still poses a health threat. Elderly people and very young infants continue to have a higher chance than the rest of the population that they will be hospitalized with Covid-19. Vaccination rates have fallen off for the former group, who are also most likely to die from an infection, and they were never strong to begin with for the latter; 95 percent of children under 4 are unvaccinated. About half of seniors being hospitalized for Covid-19 these days have never gotten a vaccine, experts say, affirming that the unvaccinated continue to be hit much harder by the virus. Infectious disease experts saw 2023 as a pivotal year for the country’s transition out of the pandemic. It would test whether the US health system could marshal a strong response to the winter Covid-cold-and-flu season, specifically through a successful vaccination campaign. The dismal start to that campaign may force a difficult question upon the public health community: If Americans don’t care about getting vaccinated against Covid-19 anymore, what do we do now? Why Americans aren’t getting their Covid-19 shots Part of the story is simply human nature. Covid-19 arrived in 2020 behaving strangely (with so much asymptomatic transmission) and incurring a deadly toll (the first iteration of the virus was notably more virulent than the flu). Much of the economy shut down and people were confined to their homes. It was a scary time and vaccines offered hope for a future in which not only would you be less likely to get seriously ill but that life could get back to normal. When shots went out to hospitals, pharmacies, and vaccination clinics in December of 2020, Americans were eager to get them. But three years and multiple new vaccine formulations later, the novelty is gone. Americans aren’t as worried about Covid-19 now. More than 70 percent of US adults said they were not concerned about getting seriously ill from Covid-19 in a November survey from the KFF health policy think tank. That figure has been about the same for the flu and RSV, suggesting Americans have come to view the novel coronavirus as a similar health risk to other cold-weather illnesses that have been circulating for a long time. Half of the people who were previously vaccinated but do not plan to get the updated Covid-19 vaccine cited a lack of concern about the virus as a reason for skipping the latest shot, per KFF. “People aren’t scared of this virus anymore,” Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told me. As evidence, he recounted that he had ridden the subway with “100 screaming, maskless” football fans heading to the Eagles-Cowboys game. “No one on that subway car had a mask on,” he said. “We are close to winter, and this is in theory a winter virus.” Familiarity is one part of that change in attitudes. Another is political polarization: Republicans, both the rank-and-file and their political leaders, have grown more and more hostile toward the Covid-19 vaccines, with a general skepticism toward government mandates spilling into conspiracy theories and disinformation. (Offit marveled at that turn of events: These vaccines are “the most amazing medical and scientific accomplishment” of his lifetime and “the greatest accomplishment of the Trump administration.” And yet.) Only 23 percent of Republicans said in KFF’s November poll that they had or would get the latest version of the Covid-19 vaccine this fall or winter. Another 43 percent of the party said they received an earlier dose but will not get the new shot and 34 percent said they have never been vaccinated at all. To compare, 40 percent of independents said they had or would get the new shot and 72 percent of Democrats said the same. While reality does not exactly match up to those responses, the gap between Republicans and the rest shows partisanship is driving vaccine attitudes. “It’s become part of somebody’s identity that they’re not somebody who gets Covid shots in particular,” said Dr. Céline Gounder, a senior fellow at KFF and editor-at-large for Public Health at KFF Health News. “That may spill over to vaccines, but it starts with Covid.” There are worrying signs of a more general resurgence in vaccine skepticism: 3 percent of US schoolchildren reported a vaccine exemption for the coming school year, the highest share on record according to the CDC. Ten states have an exemption rate above 5 percent; only two did three years ago.