Skepticism about vaccine is understandable
The May 31, 1962, front page of the San Antonio Express was chock-full of news.
John Connally and Don Yarborough, locked in a heated Democratic gubernatorial runoff, were both in town.
Santa Rosa hospital was planning a $5 million expansion. The Cold War was raging, and the State Department had failed to get Russia to negotiate on a “Berlin access agreement.”
But the biggest local news was a public health campaign to get everyone to eat a sugar cube containing a poliovirus vaccine — “every man, woman and child.” It was free.
The story was joined by a front-page editorial, “Join the attack,” which lamented the “many persons who have declined for one reason or another” to get vaccinated.
It urged San Antonians “to cooperate,” assuring them the vaccine was “safe, sure and easy to take.”
Forty locations were set up, including Alamo Heights, Edison and Lanier high schools, Freeman Coliseum, Municipal Auditorium and San Pedro Park. Five military bases joined the effort.
San Antonio was a polio hot spot, and this community-wide effort helped end its crippling spread. Getting the same level of cooperation when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available may prove harder.
National surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center show a country as divided on this issue as it is on so many others.
From May to September, the percentage of those who’d get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available dropped significantly.
In May, 72 percent of all adults said they’d take it. In September, that percentage dropped to 51, not enough to develop a herd immunity to a disease that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States, more than any other country in the world.
Republican respondents showed more reluctance: 65 percent said they’d get the vaccine in May. Four months later, that dropped to 44 percent. For Democrats, 79 percent gave way to 58 percent in the same period.
Side effect concerns and questions about effectiveness were the top reasons for those not planning to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Others said they didn’t think they needed a vaccine, or that it would cost too much.
Overall, more men than women would take the vaccine. Older respondents would be more likely to take a vaccine, as would the more educated.
More Asian Americans would take the vaccine than Latino, white and Black respondents, with African Americans showing the least confidence.
John Watson, 83, a retired attorney in Johnson City, didn’t recall such a lack of confidence in the polio vaccine in 1962. He had just moved to San Antonio that spring and was among hundreds who went to San Pedro Park.
“I trusted the government,” he said. “I was a child when Pearl Harbor broke out, and I trusted the government to win the war. I did metal drives, collected newspapers and saved nickels and dimes to buy war bonds.”
That was before Watergate, the Vietnam War and more recently, a president who openly lies day after day and who may push the nation into a constitutional crisis if he doesn’t win a second term.
This week President Donald Trump wouldn’t commit to a peaceful transition of power, an unimaginable level of disregard for democracy.
Watson was saddened by the eroding trust in governmental institutions shown in polls. Yet he’s also not sure he’ll line up for a vaccine.
“I’ll have to see what the approval process looks like,” he said. “If it’s politically rammed through, I’ll have some reluctance. The head of the FDA (Dr. Stephen M. Hahn) was the head of MD Anderson, so I hope he has the scientific integrity not to let Trump push him around.”
Watson said he’ll look to “trustworthy officials” like Dr.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There’s good reason Pew’s survey reflects a lack of trust in whatever vaccines are developed against the coronavirus.
The White House hasn’t just sowed distrust, but confusion. The president has contradicted his own health officials and agencies, effectively corrupting confidence in them. He has created disruption and politicized public health.
These are the tools of dictatorship, not democracy.
When a vaccine or vaccines are cleared and deemed effective, the United States will need at least 328 million doses. The world will need 7.6 billion.
More sobering is that coronavirus vaccines may not be as effective as those that stopped polio. More likely they’ll be like flu vaccines.
People still die of influenza. People will still die of COVID-19. What’s still needed is a coordinated effort against the coronavirus and a president who can guide a nation through it.