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Robin Foster and Ernie Mundell
Healthday Journalists
MONDAY, December 28, 2020 (HealthDay News) – Asked in polls conducted earlier this year, only about half of U.S. adults said they plan to get it vaccine against the new coronavirus. But after a largely successful deployment this month of two safe and effective shots, many of those early skeptics are now saying they’ll be lining up to get their vaccine doses when their turn comes.
According to The New York Times, polls by Gallup, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Pew Research Center all show vaccine acceptance rates have jumped from about 50% this summer to over 60%, and in one poll, to 73%.
The latter number is approaching the threshold that scientists have deemed necessary for collective immunity, where a sufficient population is immune and the spread of the coronavirus begins to decline.
“As soon as it is my turn to get the vaccine, I’ll be there in the foreground! I’m very excited and hopeful,” said Joanne Barnes, 68, a retired teacher from Fairbanks, in Alaska. Times.
Earlier this summer, Barnes had told the newspaper otherwise; that she would do not take the hit. According to Barnes, the game-changer was “the Biden administration, coming back to listening to science and the fantastic statistics associated with vaccines.”
With more than 19 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States by Monday and more than 333,000 Americans now killed by the disease, more people than ever have been personally affected by the novel coronavirus. This harsh reality could also prompt some to reconsider the shot.
“More people have been affected or infected with COVID,” said Rupali Limaye, a vaccine behavior expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Times. “They know someone who has had a serious case or who has died. They are tired and want to get back to normal life.”
Media campaigns, including on-camera moments with politicians and scientists – such as Vice President Mike Pence, President-elect Joe Biden and Dr Anthony Fauci – have all rolled up their sleeves for the shots can also have helped build acceptance.
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Yet large pockets of skepticism and resistance to vaccination remain. According to Times, mistrust of the vaccine is higher among blacks than whites, among Republicans compared to Democrats, and among people living in rural areas compared to cities.
Yet resistance is slowly fading in most groups, Times said.
A black American, Mike Brown, runs a hair salon in Hyattsville, Maryland. This summer, he said he would not receive any COVID-19 vaccine, but has since changed his mind.
“The news of its 95% effectiveness convinced me,” Brown told the Times. “The side effects are just like how you feel after a bad night of drinking and you’re in pain the next day. Well I’ve had a lot and I can handle that to get rid of the face masks. “
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