They regret not getting vaccine — now they push the shot online
“Anybody else out running in the rain?” asks a drenched but gleeful Louie Michael in a TikTok video, before starting to sing, “I have been blessed.”
The Missouri-based entertainer and real estate agent had ample reason to be celebrating. He was “about 40 days past COVID” when he made the video on July 17, and his only persistent symptom was hives. The disease had landed both him and his wife, Pattie Bunch, in the hospital.
Mr. Michael has been documenting various milestones of his recovery on TikTok, including a clip in which he belts out Frankie Valli’s “Can’t
Take My Eyes
Off You” to showcase the return of his voice.
Mostly, though, he’s used social media to urge people to get the vaccine — because he didn’t and now knows the consequences.
“I was just one of those that was on the fence about the COVID shot,” he says in one video. “If I could avoid what I’ve been going through for the last three, four weeks, I would have got the shot long before now.”
He stresses that getting vaccinated should be a personal choice, but his message is blunt. “Get that vaccination if you can,” he says in another. “You don’t want to go through this. It’s horrible.”
Regret has become a new tool in the battle against the coronavirus. As media outlets pump out story after story of people who fell ill only to wish they’d gotten vaccinated, individuals and health institutions are sharing similar stories across social media platforms in hopes they will persuade at least some of the tens of millions of Americans who remain unvaccinated to have a change ofheart and get the shot.
Dolores Albarracín, a University of Pennsylvania professor who studies human behaviors related to health, said that approach can be effective if the messages are “sincere” and “not preaching,” particularly if the advocate and the viewer share similar demographics. A white working-class male who underwent a conversion, for example, might be able to connect with other white, working-class males who are opposed to getting vaccinated.
“This is at least a new approach that goes beyond the repeated instructions to vaccinate and fear appeals we see in the media,” she said.
Travis Campbell, a 43year-old Bristol, Va., retail worker and former police officer, has turned his Facebook page into a video diary in which he chronicles his battle with the coronavirus, pneumonia and a partially collapsed lung since late July.
Instead of shying away from the harsh realities of the disease, he places a spotlight onthem, discussing the panic attacks brought on by the virus and the fact that “you will use the bathroom on yourself constantly because you can’t control yourself.”
“I’m not trying to talk down to you,” he says in one video. His speech is labored, and he’s hooked up to an oxygen tank. “I’m trying to talk to you to let you understand that I don’t want to go to your funeral, and I don’t want you to come to mine. The new delta strain attacks those who didn’t get vaccinated. And it’s faster. And I was negligent by not taking my family and myself serious and getting vaccinated.”
One of the more prominent public displays of regret came from Nashville conservative talk show host Phil Valentine, who had long questioned the vaccine.
“I’m just using common sense. What are my odds of getting COVID? They’re pretty low. What are my odds of dying from COVID if I do get it? Probably way less than 1 percent,” he wrote on his blog in December 2020.
He contracted the coronavirus in mid-July, was brought to the hospital and placed in critical care.
Phil’s brother, Mark, made a post on his Facebook page on his behalf days later that read, in part, “Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an ‘anti-vaxer’ he regrets not being more vehemently ‘Pro-Vaccine,’ and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he is back on the air, which we all hope will be soon.”
“Please continue to pray for his recovery and Please go get vaccinated!” he added.
On Monday, Super Talk 99-7 WTN posted to Facebook that Phil “remains critically ill.”
“It’s not easy to say that we were maybe mistaken initially,” said Kaitlyn McConnell, the systems director of public relations at CoxHealth, a nonprofit health system in southwest Missouri. “It’s extremely brave.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Ms. McConnell’s team has used YouTube to share stories and images from the medical front lines in their six hospitals. Once vaccines were available, they began asking people who expressed regret at not receiving one to tell their stories.
A recent video features 42year-old Russell Taylor, speaking from a hospital bed andwearing a medical gown.
“I was one of those Americans that was, like, skeptical, not knowing who you can trust. So I just pulled back and took a stance of, ‘If God allows it, then it must be,’ ” he says in the clip, before describing how he then caught the coronavirus, which led to double pneumonia and a three-week hospital stay. “I really thought I was going to die.”
“I don’t see how I could not” get the vaccine now, he added. “My stance is God made medicine, too.”
He stresses that getting vaccinated should be a personal choice, but his message is blunt. “Get that vaccination if you can,” he says in another video. “You don’t want to go through this. It’s horrible.”