Republican worries threaten virus fight
Poll finds 42% of GOP say they’re unlikely to get shot
In this rural swath of Virginia’s Shenandoah valley, former President Donald Trump remains deeply admired, with lawn signs and campaign flags still dotting the landscape. The vaccines aimed at taming the coronavirus, however, aren’t so popular.
Laura Biggs, a 56-yearold who has already recovered from the virus, is wary of taking the vaccine. Reassurances from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration have done little to ease her alarm that the vaccine could lead to death.
“The way I feel about it is: I don’t need the vaccine at this point,“she said. “And I’m not going to get the vaccine until it is well established.”
That sentiment demonstrates the challenge ahead for public health officials as the U.S. intensifies its efforts for widespread vaccinations that could put an end to a devastating pandemic that has left more than 530,000 dead. The campaign could falter if it becomes another litmus test in America’s raging culture wars, just as mandates for mask-wearing were a point of polarization at the onset of the virus.
While polls have found vaccine hesitancy falling overall, opposition among Republicans remains stubbornly strong. A new poll from The Associated PRESS-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 42 percent of Republicans say they probably or definitely will not get the shot, compared with 17 percent of Democrats — a 25-point split.
While demand for vaccinations still far outstrips the available supply in most parts of the country, there are already signs in some places of slowing registration. And the impact is expected to grow when supply begins to surpass demand by late April or early May, said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health.
“This is going to be the big issue,“he said. “And if we get stuck at 60 or 65 percent vaccinated, we are going to continue to see significant outbreaks and real challenges in our country, and it’s going to be much, much harder to get back to what we think is normal unless we can get that number higher.”
Ron Holloway is an example of the hurdles facing health officials. The 75-year-old Forsyth, Missouri, resident and his wife, who is 74, are at a higher risk of contracting the virus. But he was steadfast in insisting that they “don’t do vaccinations.”
“This whole thing is blown way out of proportion and a bunch of nonsense,“he said of the virus. “We still haven’t lost 1 percent of our population.
It is just ridiculous.”
Biggs is a Virginia conservative who voted for Trump. She said partisan differences were obvious among her friends and family in all aspects of the pandemic, including vaccine acceptance.
“Family members who lean left have not left home for a year,” she said, while she and her husband “went everywhere. We traveled more in 2020 than I have in any year of our whole life . ... I just think that there was a hysteria about it. And people put themselves in boxes, so to speak.”
Republicans have been skeptical of the pandemic all along. AP-NORC polls have shown they worry less than Democrats about infection and voice more opposition to restrictions and mask-wearing. In interviews over the last several days, many wondered why they should be early adopters of vaccines with potential side effects when they weren’t worried about the virus and had already moved on.
But the resistance to vaccines has worried GOP pollster Frank Luntz, who convened a focus group on Saturday with 20 vaccine-skeptical Trump voters to try to figure out what kinds of messages might persuade them to take the shots. Participating in the session were Republican congressional leaders, including House Minority Leader Kevin Mccarthy, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, and former CDC director Thomas Frieden.