One segment of people who have avoided shots is vehemently opposed to the idea. But there is a second group, surveys suggest, that is still deciding.
www.nytimes.com
Who Are the Unvaccinated in America? There’s No One Answer.
One segment of people who have avoided shots is vehemently opposed to the idea. But there is a second group, surveys suggest, that is still deciding.
As coronavirus cases rise across the United States, the fight against the pandemic is focused on an estimated 93 million people who are eligible for shots but have chosen not to get them. These are the Americans who are most vulnerable to serious illness from the highly contagious Delta variant and most likely to carry the virus, spreading it further.
It turns out, though, that this is not a single set of Americans, but in many ways two.
In one group are those who say they are adamant in their refusal of the coronavirus vaccines; they include a mix of people but tend to be disproportionately white, rural, evangelical Christian and politically conservative, surveys show.
In the other are those who say they are open to getting a shot but have been putting it off or want to wait and see before making a decision; they are a broad range of people, but tend to be a more diverse and urban group, including many younger people, Black and Latino Americans, and Democrats.
With cases surging and hospitalizations rising, health officials are making progress in inoculating this second group, who surveys suggest account for less than half of all unvaccinated adults in the United States.
The problem is the same surveys show that the group firmly opposed to the vaccines outnumbers those willing to be swayed. And unless the nation finds a way to persuade the unwavering, escaping the virus’s grip will be a long way off, because they make up as much as 20 percent of the adult population.
Interviews this past week with dozens of people in 17 states presented a portrait of the unvaccinated in the United States, people driven by a wide mix of sometimes overlapping fears, conspiracy theories, concern about safety and generalized skepticism of powerful institutions tied to the vaccines, including the pharmaceutical industry and the federal government.
Myrna Patterson, 85, a Democrat from Rochester, N.Y., who works at a hospital, said she could not shake her worry that the vaccines were produced too quickly. “Is it really worth me taking it?” Ms. Patterson said. “How do they know that it will kill the virus, and if it’s really good for humans to be taking this vaccine?”
Hannah Reid, 30, a mother of four and a certified sommelier in Oregon who is an unaffiliated voter, said she had long been apprehensive about vaccines: Her young children get many but not all pediatric shots. She says her Christian faith has also made her comfortable with not yet getting a Covid-19 shot, which she thinks is too new, the conversation around it too noisy and bombastic.
Alex Garcia, 25, who is not tied to any political party and works in landscaping in Texas, said he believed he was too young and healthy to need a vaccine. “My immune system could fight it,” Mr. Garcia said. He said he did not worry about infecting his unvaccinated 86-year-old grandmother, either.
About 30 percent of the adult population in the United States has yet to receive a shot, and about 58 percent of those age 12 through 17 have yet to receive a shot.
Part of the challenge is that the unvaccinated live in communities dotted throughout the United States, in both lightly and densely populated counties. Though some states like Missouri and Arkansas have significantly lagged the nation in vaccination rates, unvaccinated Americans are, to varying degrees, everywhere: In Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, 51 percent of residents are fully vaccinated. Los Angeles County is barely higher, at 53 percent. In Wake County, N.C., part of the liberal, high-tech Research Triangle area, the vaccination rate is 55 percent.
The rate of vaccinations across the country has slowed significantly since April, but there are signs in recent days of a new rise in shots being distributed, with upticks in vaccinations particularly in states like Arkansas, Louisiana and Missouri, where cases have grown. As of Friday, about 652,000 doses, on average, were being given each day, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; that was up from recent weeks, when the country hovered just above 500,000 shots a day. Nationwide, about 97 percent of people hospitalized with Covid-19 are unvaccinated, federal data shows.
How many people eventually decide to get shots could help determine the course of the virus and severity of illnesses across the country, so efforts to convince the unvaccinated — both the group that is waiting and watching and the vehemently opposed — have gained steam with advertising campaigns, incentives and new mandates. Some experts have estimated that 90 percent or more of the total population — adults and children — would need to be fully vaccinated for the country to reach a possibly elusive herd immunity threshold of protection against the coronavirus.
So far excluded from the debate over vaccination are 48 million unvaccinated children under 12, who are too young to be eligible for a shot until at least fall. They make up 15 percent of the total population in the United States. Once they are eligible, it is uncertain how many will get shots; even some vaccinated parents are hesitant to inoculate their children, surveys show.
Doctors say they are working to convince reluctant Americans, sometimes in long conversations that unravel falsehoods about vaccines.
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