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The
end is in sight, we are told. The cavalry has arrived in the form of
safe and effective vaccines for COVID-19 on the verge of approval and
being manufactured for widespread distribution. The stock
market has surged
in response to every pharmaceutical company’s press release of its
latest successful clinical trial. Americans are expecting an end to
this traumatic chapter of our history and are ready to turn the page
on the year 2020.
Except
that if the United States has led the world in per capita infections
and deaths because of deep skepticism from an intransigent population
toward even the mildest of safety precautions, do we expect the same
people refusing to wear a face mask to take not one, but two
doses
of a brand-new vaccine? We may have safe and effective vaccines soon
enough, but through a cruelly ironic twist of our nation’s
perverted political climate, society may simply refuse to save
itself.
Several
key segments of the American population have varied reasons for
vaccine skepticism. Among Black and brown communities, there is a
deep-seated and justifiable mistrust due to historical
government-sanctioned medical abuse that is reflected
in new polls
about the COVID-19 vaccine. On the American left, mistrust of large
pharmaceutical companies putting profits
above the public health—again
justifiable—is driving cynicism about the motives of private
corporations that have had piles of
taxpayer cash
thrown at them.
Among
liberal elites, the growing popularity of “clean
eating,”
“wellness,”
and taking personal
responsibility
for one’s health through expensive diets and rigorous exercise
regimes has seeded an insidious movement that strives for purity as a
pathway to well-being and health. Part of that movement includes
prizing natural remedies over chemical ones, including for such
life-threatening diseases as cancer. It has also fueled the idea that
medications including vaccines are “dangerous”
contaminants to our bodies. Quack doctors like Andrew
Wakefield,
celebrities like Jenny
McCarthy,
and political figures like Robert
Kennedy Jr.
have caused serious damage to trust in vaccine safety. Before the
pandemic, one of the biggest fears among public health experts was
the resurgence of measles fueled
by falling vaccination rates.
On
the right, a similar vaccine skepticism has emerged as
anti-vaccination activists court
conservatives as allies,
creating an unlikely
coalition.
Republican Senator Ron Johnson went as far as inviting an
anti-vaccine doctor
to testify before a Senate committee recently. Also prevalent is the
notion that “herd immunity”—which is a term used to describe
the threshold of safety that vaccines achieve if enough people take
them—can be achieved simply by enough
people catching the disease.
President Donald Trump has been one of the chief
proponents
of this thoroughly debunked
idea.
Scientists
have estimated that at least two-thirds
of the population
need to be vaccinated in order to stop the spread of COVID-19. In
August, less
than half of the population
was willing to take a vaccine—an unsurprising number considering
the widespread mistrust of vaccines in general. Republicans are more
skeptical
than Democrats, which is also not surprising given that a majority
of GOP voters
still support Trump—a president whose relentless lies and science
skepticism form the basis of his leadership. A nation so steeped in
misinformation that it ushered in a charlatan to take power for four
long years is naturally susceptible to suspicion of vaccines.
Some
of the fear stems from disbelief that an effective vaccine could be
produced in such a short period of time. Indeed, past efforts at
developing effective vaccines have taken many
years.
In that context, the federal government’s “Operation
Warp Speed”
vaccine project has sparked fear. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, explained,
“People don’t understand that, because when they hear ‘Operation
Warp Speed,’ they think, ‘Oh, my God, they’re jumping over all
these steps and they’re going to put us at risk.’” But in fact,
decades of critical
medical research
formed the foundation upon which companies like Pfizer and Moderna
have developed the mRNA type of vaccines that have thus far exceeded
scientists’ expectations in clinical trials. Fauci explained, “The
speed is a reflection of years of work that went before.”
There
is another insidious obstacle to a vaccination program. We live in a
nation enamored by libertarian ideals. The concept of collective
action to protect the common good flies in the face of “individual
liberty” and the Ayn-Rand-inspired
notions
that each American is solely responsible for their own happiness and
well-being. This idea forms the basis of our health care system—or
lack thereof. The coronavirus pandemic hit the United States at a
time when we have no publicly funded universal health care system to
speak of. The U.S. government’s message to Americans is essentially
that, unless you fall below the poverty line, have a disability, or
are over the age of 65, you are on your own to seek health insurance
and health care wherever you can find it. Once the novel coronavirus
entered the picture, the frailties
of this disjointed, disorganized, profit-based, and frankly cruel
system were exposed like never before in recent memory.
Now,
this same flawed system is expected to undertake a mass vaccination
program to a skeptical public while at the same time struggling to
treat ever-growing numbers of COVID-19 patients needing
hospitalization.
True
herd
immunity
can only be achieved when enough of the population has been
inoculated that vulnerable populations (infants, adults with vaccine
allergies and elderly people) are protected. Vaccines don’t just
protect the individuals who take them; they offer collective
safeguards for society as a whole. A population that has been
conditioned to think about health as a solely individual concern has
been hard-pressed to swallow such an idea. Think about the obstinate
mask-refusers
among us.
As
a journalist, every time I address vaccine skepticism on my broadcast
program, I receive vitriolic hate mail claiming that I am a shill for
“big pharma” or simply too stupid to see the light. But we cannot
let misinformation, fear, and individualistic thinking discourage
reporting on this issue. In some ways, vaccines have become a victim
of their own success. Because we have lived (until this year) in a
world relatively free of preventable but horrific diseases like
smallpox and rubella—achieved through mass vaccination—many
Americans have taken for granted the quality of life made possible
through inoculation efforts.
The
good news is that new polls show growing support for vaccination
amidst an unfathomable
rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths.
According to one new survey, 63
percent of Americans
are now willing to get vaccinated—close to the minimum threshold
that could curb the spread of the disease. Outreach and education
efforts on accepting vaccinations in Black
and Latino
communities that have been hardest hit by the disease are underway.
Unfortunately,
the vaccine refusers among us will likely continue to benefit from
living in a largely vaccinated community, mooching off of the herd
immunity they refuse to contribute to.
This
article was produced by Economy for All,
a
project of the Independent Media Institute.
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