If herd immunity weren’t so important to stop COVID from mutating into something even more lethal than it already is or turn it into something that can evade the vaccines, I’d be tempted to say that I’m not really all that concerned about people who refuse to take the vaccine. Unfortunately, we do have to worry about them because they are willingly providing themselves as hosts for the vaccine variants and that’s dangerous for everyone.
Margaret, an 80-year-old retiree who lives outside Tulsa, has spent the past year living in fear of the coronavirus. She’s constantly worn masks, toted hand sanitizer and used drive-throughs to run her errands. Her age and preexisting health conditions — including heart failure, diabetes and blood clots — put her at elevated risk if she gets sick.
But unlike many at-risk Americans seeking safety and an end to the pandemic, Margaret refuses to get a coronavirus vaccine.
“There’s too many unanswered questions,” said Margaret, who agreed to be interviewed only if her last name was withheld because of concerns she might be harassed. Margaret also said she’s fearful of possible side effects, like the headaches that some people have gotten from the second shot. “I’d just as soon as not go through that,” she said.AD
Margaret is a Republican — a fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump — and polls have repeatedly found that nearly one-third of Republicans share her staunch resistance to the coronavirus vaccines, although for a variety of reasons. Some, like Margaret, worry they were developed too quickly. Others argue without evidence that many vaccines are unsafe or will make them sick. Still more echo Trump’s repeated contention that the coronavirus threatis overblown and simply don’t trust the government’s involvement.
“I had a slight fever of 99.5 for a day and a half,” said Steven Rousey, a 43-year-old aircraft mechanic in Georgia who describes himself as a “Libertarian Republican,” and said tests confirmed that he caught the virus in September. “I don’t think it was the boogeyman they made it out to be.”
While other groups have also been wary about the shots, for instance, communities of color, polling showsthat hesitancy has started to wane while GOP resistance to the vaccines remains relatively high. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last month found that 28 percent of Republicans said they would “definitely not”get vaccinated, and another 18 percent said they would “wait and see” before getting a shot.As a result, millions of Republicans could remain unvaccinated, a potential roadblock to efforts to achieve the high levels of immunity needed to stop the virus in the United States — an irony that isn’t lost on Trump officials who worked to end the pandemic.l
“It’s a little bit confounding,” said Paul Mango, who helped lead the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative that sped coronavirus vaccines to market in less than a year. “I really don’t understand it, to tell you the truth. To me, this was the most spectacular medical development in our lifetimes.”
Some of that hesitancy is embodied by Trump himself, who spent years raising questions about vaccine safety, dismissed the value of flu shots while president and opted not to publicly disclose or televise that he was vaccinated against the coronavirus in January, shortlybefore leaving the White House.
The Post spoke with more than two dozen people about Republicans’ vaccine hesitancy, including Trump voters balking at the shots, analysts who have studied vaccine concerns, and health officials from the Biden administration, counties that voted forTrump and the de Beaumont Foundation, a public health group that has teamed up with longtime GOP political strategist Frank Luntz to win over vaccine skeptics.
“I’m determined to crack this code,” Luntz said, detailing his plans to bring together a focus group of Republicans this week, trying to craft messages to convince conservatives to get the vaccine. “Their decision affects everyone.”
But some of the Americans that Luntz and others are desperate to persuade say they’ve already made up their minds.
“If the coronavirus is supposed to kill you, it’s going to kill you even if you hide under a rock and wear a mask,” said Gary, a 73-year-old retired pipe fitter in West Virginia who voted twice for Trump, and who asked for his last name to be withheld so he could speak freely about his beliefs. “Personally, I don’t think it’s any worse than the flu.”
I lay this 100% at Trump’s door. If he hadn’t “downplayed” the virus and had pushed his own people to take it seriously this wouldn’t be happening.
Good luck to Frank Luntz. I don’t even know that Trump could change their minds now. After all, there are over half a million dead and they are still saying it’s nothing more lethal than the flu.