US, Israel once set vaccine pace
Now both trail other nations as resistance to shots, fears linger
NEW YORK — The United States was one of the first countries to begin vaccinating its population, and by summer, was leading most nations in getting shots in arms, with 67% of the population receiving at least one shot by July 4.
Today, 87% of people in Portugal are fully vaccinated, according to the Our World in Data project at Oxford University. That rate is second only to that of the United Arab Emirates, a far smaller country whose rulers exert considerably greater control. Earlier this month, Portugal ended nearly all of its coronavirus restrictions.
The United States, meanwhile, despite having a surplus of doses, has fully vaccinated only 57% of its population, according to a New York Times tracker.
Resistance remains high among some demographic groups and within some specific workforce sectors, including police officers and firefighters.
That has left the United States lagging behind dozens of nations in the pursuit of full vaccination. Although, with a population of about 330 million, it ranks third in the sheer number of administered doses, more than 411 million, after China’s more than 2.2 billion doses and India’s more than 1 billion.
Other early vaccination leaders have also stumbled.
Israel got an early start on its vaccination campaign Dec. 20 and rapidly outpaced virtually every other nation in getting shots into arms — and now in giving booster shots to nearly half of its eligible population.
But today, with hesitancy remaining among Arab, Orthodox Jewish and younger Israelis, the country reports that just 63% of its population is fully vaccinated, less than South Korea, Italy and some 40 other countries.
Public health experts blame the shortcomings of the U.S. effort partly on a toxic political environment, amplified by misinformation on social media and muddled messaging by government authorities.
“Every country has an anti-vax movement, but in most countries it’s exceedingly small,” said Dr.
John Swartzberg, a professor at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley and who has taught a seminar on vaccine hesitancy for several years. “It’s not a new movement, but it’s never had the traction it has today.”
Social media has been “irresponsible” in dealing with unfounded rumors, he said, and the United States has been “the poster child of a country that has not handled the messaging about vaccines.”
A lack of trust in authorities and expertise, along with deep political polarization, also played a key role in hampering the U.S. vaccination effort, said Dr. Michael Lauzardo, deputy director of the University of Florida’s Emerging Pathogens Institute.
“If somebody’s family member is diagnosed with cancer, you’re going to talk to an expert,” he said. “But if somebody’s family member gets a life-threatening disease, in this case COVID, they’re more willing to listen to television pundits and get their information from social media than from doctors and public health experts.”
In New York, the threat of losing jobs forced thousands of workers to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Teachers, nurses and home health aides accepted their occupations’ mandates.
The mass resignations some experts had predicted did not occur, as most workers hurriedly got inoculated.
But others did not. Josephine Valdez, 30, a public school paraprofessional from the Bronx borough, remains a holdout.
Failing to meet the New York City Education Department’s vaccination deadline, Valdez lost her job this month.
She is among the 4% of the city’s roughly 150,000 public school employees who did not comply with the order.
She is also part of a sizable, unwavering contingent across the country whose resistance to the vaccines have won out over paychecks or who have given up careers entirely.
Still, misinformation has been powerful, and fear and doubt have hardened into obstinacy for many of the vaccine refusers.
As Valdez packed up her classroom on her final day, Oct. 1, her students became distressed, she recalled.
“The kids, they were telling me not to leave, to just go get the vaccine,” said Valdez, who has moved back in with her parents. “I had to explain to them, the government doesn’t own my body.”
She is now tutoring an elementary school student whose parents chose to remove their daughter from public school because they oppose the mask requirement for children.
In Asia, part of the turnaround comes from countries finally securing supplies and working out the kinks in their vaccination programs.
In countries like France, Italy and Canada, officials began requiring people to use health passports to show proof of vaccination to enter many establishments, a move that is credited with improving their vaccination efforts.