News and Social Media Sabotaging Vaccinations

Even as more Americans roll up their sleeves for life-saving COVID-19 vaccinations, suspicions fueled by the news media and misleading information on social media sites are causing many to skip the shot. Public skepticism is endangering America's effort to beat a menacing, year-long pandemic.

Worries over the safety, the "rushed" nature of the pharmaceutical development and politicization of the vaccines are behind the public reluctance to be vaccinated.  Online conspiracies are spiraling out of control even as millions of vials of the vaccines are dispatched to every state.  

In little more than a month, 59.3 million dosages of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have been dispatched. States have struggled to administer 42.1 million shots, despite months of lead time to develop public health plans.  A total of 9.1 million Americans have received the required two dosages.

While the snail's pace is unsettling, the more vexing issue is the public mistrust, apathy and even hostility toward promising vaccines that will end America's lockdown nightmare.  This anti-vaccine drumbeat is at odds with fatality statistics: More than 2 million worldwide and 460,000 in the U.S.

Pew Researchers tracked mushrooming apprehension among Americans.  In May, a Pew survey showed 27% of Americans would decline a COVID vaccination.  By November, that number had surged to 39%.  Polls indicate many are adopting a wait-and-see attitude to judge the vaccine's safety.

Speeding up the distribution and inoculation process will not halt the pandemic if four-in-10 adults are unwilling to be vaccinated.  Health experts believe that a vaccination rate of 75%-to-80% of Americans could potentially allow the country to achieve herd immunity later this year.

"By the time we get into fall, we can start approaching some degree of relief where the level of infection will be so low in society we can start essentially approaching some form of normality," says Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

His encouraging assessment has failed to motivate many Americans to bare their arms for a vaccination.  Here are just a few examples of what is happening across the country:

• Center for Disease Control (CDC) statistics document that only 37.5% of skilled staff at nursing homes are agreeing to be vaccinated.  The CDC reviewed data from 11,000 nursing facilities.
• Public records in Los Angeles show that between 20% to 40% of all frontline health workers refused to be vaccinated.
• In December about 60% of nursing home staff in Ohio declined to take the vaccines.  The state's governor expressed alarm at the statistics.
• The director of the United Memorial Medical Center in Houston publicly complained about the resistance from staff to take the vaccine.  About 50% of nurses are choosing not to be vaccinated.
• The New York City Firefighters are balking at being vaccinated. More than half of the 2,000 members of the Firefighters Association say they will not take a shot.

When frontline health workers and nursing home staff turn thumbs down on being vaccinated, it sends the wrong signal to average Americans.  They rightly wonder: If people in the health care profession reject the vaccines, they must know something is wrong with the safety and efficacy of the shots.

Cynicism over the vaccine unfolded even before the first vaccines were approved.  Democrats complained former President Trump was "rushing" the scientific development of a vaccine for political reasons. There are many examples that could be cited, but here's just one:

"We are all praying for a safe and effective vaccine as soon as possible, but the damage of the Trump Administration rushing a vaccine before it is known to be safe and effective could be catastrophic," Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a public statement issued October 6.

Throughout the presidential campaign, a Democrat theme was to raise alarm about the administration's handling of the pandemic and to dismiss the promise of vaccines to eradicate the virus.  The media echoed that narrative and deliberately downplayed the advance of science on the vaccine front.    

A new National Bureau of Economic Study of news coverage found a striking difference in the way the U.S. media covered the pandemic compared to journalists in other countries.  A staggering 91% of stories by major news outlets were negative versus 54% in non-U.S. media.  

The study, published by Dartmouth College and Brown University scholars, analyzed more than 20,000 news reports from 15 top U.S. media outlets and 39 international sources.  Among their discoveries was the way the media dismissed the likelihood of having a successful vaccine.

The authors noted that a vaccine was mentioned in 1,371 stories during the period while researchers found 8,756 print and broadcast reports involving Mr. Trump not wearing a mask and 1,636 mentions of the former president's endorsement of hydroxycholroquine. 

Some still want to pin the blame on President Trump.  But Mr. Trump touted the vaccines.  Vice President Mike Pence and members of both the Trump and Biden Administrations were shown receiving vaccinations to tamp down any speculation that the vaccines were unsafe.

Today every instance of someone experiencing a negative reaction to the vaccine is covered by the media in alarmist tones.  When a Democrat congressman tested positive after receiving two dosages of the vaccine, it erupted into a national news story.  Negative news about the vaccines stokes fear.     

Social media has been a sewer of conspiracy theories about the vaccine.  Some of the claims: The needle used to vaccinate people has a microchip with the mark of the Beast; vaccines alter your DNA; vaccines contain a microbe that tracks you; and the vaccines cause COVID. 

Ironically, social media platforms are removing what they consider "violent" content posted by conservatives, but allow conspiratorial scams to fester online, which sow the seeds of distrust for the vaccines and allow disinformation to spread unchecked.      

The damage already done to the public's perceptions will require a massive educational campaign by the health and medical community. It will be a long slog.  However, if it is not done quickly, there is very little light at the end of a long and deadly tunnel.