Things moved fast, but it doesn’t mean safety was sacrificed How to talk with those hesitant about COVID-19 vaccine

At this point in Wisconsin’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout, you probably know at least one — or maybe dozens — of people who’ve gotten the shot.

You might also know people who’ve told you they’re hesitant to get it for one reason or another.

The number of Americans who are planning to “wait and see” how the vaccine affects others before getting it themselves continues to fall, according to the latest data from a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, down to 17% in March from 39% in December.

And the percentage of those who said they will “definitely not” get the vaccine hasn’t shifted much in recent months, meaning people who moved out of the “wait and see” category likely decided to go ahead and get the jab.

Still, we’ll have to shrink that group further if the U.S. hopes to reach herd immunity from the virus, which scientists estimate could be 70-90% of the population having antibody protection.

If you see the benefit of the COVID-19 vaccines but know somebody who’s not as sure, here are a few tips for having a conversation about it.

Don’t shame, don’t scold and take concerns seriously

Start a conversation by committing to be respectful and not assume why a person is wary of the vaccine, said Dr.

James Conway, an infectious diseases expert at the University of WisconsinMadison’s Global Health Institute who has worked on vaccination programs for decades.

“It’s understandable why people had concerns,” Conway said. “This was unprecedented.”

Certain messaging along the way from governmental bodies, like the Trump administration’s decision to coin the development effort Operation Warp Speed, may have added to people’s perception that the vaccine was rushed, he added.

Brushing those fears aside isn’t likely to get you anywhere. And threatening exclusion — saying they won’t be invited to family gatherings without the shot, for example — will shut the conversation down fast, experts say.

Instead, engage respectfully and come prepared to help answer the questions they have, or at least point them in the right direction to do so. As the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine picked up speed last year, a fact began to get passed around: Even the fastest vaccine developed in history, the mumps vaccine, took four years to create.

How then, people wondered, could these have been developed in less than 12 months? Wouldn’t a compressed

timeline mean safety measures were skipped?

It’s been a challenge for public health professionals to explain why this isn’t the case, but the bottom line is, it isn’t. Clinical trials for each of the COVID-19 vaccines on the market had the same number of people in them as other vaccine trials, Conway said — and so far, data from the real world is matching up with the data from those trials.

At the time that the first COVID-19 vaccines were up for their emergency use authorizations from the FDA, Conway said he was “surprised and a little taken aback” at how rigorous the safety standards the agency was requiring were.

Another puzzle piece that sped development along: collaboration. With a threat as severe as a global pandemic, companies that would normally keep data and research close to the vest were inclined to share it, Conway said.

‘Long-term side effects’ aren’t expected

Most people know about the short-term side effects of the vaccine — a sore arm, a fever, chills or body aches as it triggers the body’s immune response a day or two after the shot.

But because the shots are new, it’s natural to think about what effects they could have on the body in the longer term.

There are some vaccines that have caused rare but harmful reactions after a longer period of time, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, explained in a January video for the hospital. The polio vaccine, for example, caused paralysis in a small number of people that took it.

But people should be comforted by the fact that these reactions were all seen in less than two months after the shot. There hasn’t been a serious side effect of a vaccine in history that hasn’t occurred within this timeframe, Offit said.

This is why the U.S. Food and Drug Administration required each of the authorized COVID-19 vaccines to be studied for two months in clinical trials after people received their final dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And now, hundreds of millions of others in real-world scenarios have taken it too.

“If there were any rare or unusual things we were going to only unmask when we got into large populations, we would have seen those things by now,” Conway said.

What’s up with the Johnson & Johnson shot?

On Tuesday, Wisconsin health officials ordered vaccine providers to stop giving the Johnson & Johnson vaccine while federal agencies investigate an extremely rare but serious blood-clotting reaction.

Six American women between the ages of 18 and 48 developed condition known as cerebral venous sinus thrombosis within two weeks of being vaccinated. One has died, and another is hospitalized in critical condition.

The federal Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control are conducting a review of the cases to determine whether the clots are linked to the vaccine. But health officials are stressing that if you received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, it’s extremely unlikely that you’ll develop the reaction.

Close to 7 million Americans have received the Johnson & Johnson shot, meaning less than one in a million experienced the clotting reaction. In comparison, some studies show your chances of developing a blood clot if you become critically ill with COVID-19 is much higher — as high as 31%.

If you experience a severe headache, abdominal pain, leg pain, shortness of breath or new vision problems between six and 15 days after you got the vaccine, you should contact a doctor. Flu-like side effects a day or two after the shot are normal and not cause for concern.

The pause is happening out of an “abundance of caution,” federal health officials said. Wisconsin’s interim health officer Julie Willems Van Dijk said it should reassure people that the rigorous safety measures put in place to monitor the vaccines are working as intended.

Talk positively about what’s possible after

When the CDC released guidelines for what fully vaccinated people could safely do, it brought a wash of relief for many.

Gathering indoors without masks, safe domestic travel, and at long last, hugging — it signaled brighter days ahead.

Talking with friends and family about these benefits may prove to be a convincing reason to get the shot, Conway said, as long as it’s cast in a positive rather than exclusionary light.

For example, he was able to see his family and hug his mom for the first time in almost two years after many of them had received the vaccine. He wouldn’t have felt safe doing so otherwise, he said.