Success of COVID-19 vaccines may convince people not to get vaccinated

The United States is expected to miss the Biden administration’s target of having 70% of adults vaccinated with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by July 4. Instead, the country will be below the target by just a few percentage points.

Currently, about 66.5% of adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. To reach the 70% target, about 9 million unvaccinated adults, aged 18 and over, would need to receive a dose of the vaccine over the next three days. Although the number of daily vaccinations increased slightly over the past week, there were only about 1.37 million doses of vaccine given on June 30, bringing the seven-day average of the daily doses given to about 945,000. And that number includes second doses and doses given to people between the ages of 12 and 17, which are not included in President Joe Biden’s target.

Although we are only narrowly missing the goal of the vaccine, new survey data highlights how difficult it becomes to vaccinate even these small shards of the population in the future.

While about 65% of adults surveyed say they have already received their COVID-19 vaccine, only 3% say they still plan to get the vaccine as soon as possible. The others replied that they “would wait and see” (10%), would only get vaccinated if necessary (6%) or would “definitely not” be vaccinated (14%).

Unfazed and vulnerable

The proportion of the “definitely not” crowd has remained largely unchanged throughout the survey, which began last December and is conducted monthly by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Throughout the survey, between 13% and 15% of adults surveyed fell into the “definitely not” category. Likewise, the “only if necessary” proportion has fluctuated between 6 and 7% since January.

Meanwhile, the proportion of expectations has dropped significantly, from 39% in December to the current 10% in June data. However, the remaining 10 percent can be harder than ever to influence. Of the remaining wait-and-see adults, 61% said they feared the current vaccines might not be effective against the variants. (Mounting data continues to show that current vaccines are effective against all of the variants of concern circulating in the United States). And 43% said the number of cases is so low that there is “no need for more people to get the vaccine.”

Overall, the current decline in the rates of cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the country, largely attributable to highly effective vaccines and successful vaccination efforts, appears to have a chilling effect on other vaccinations. . Of all the unvaccinated people surveyed, 50% said the low number of cases meant there was no need to be vaccinated anymore. And, of the only people who said they “definitely would not” get vaccinated, 67% said the low number of cases made the vaccination unnecessary.

In the meantime, experts are sounding the alarm over the imminent risk of COVID-19 outbreaks and outbreaks in areas with low vaccination rates. During a White House press briefing Thursday, Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, noted that there are about 1,000 counties, mostly in the Southeast and Midwest, that have a vaccination coverage less than 30%. “These communities … are our most vulnerable,” said Dr Walensky. “In some of these areas we are already seeing increased rates of disease. As the Delta variant continues to spread across the country, we expect transmission to increase in these communities unless we can immunize more people now.