35% of Americans say they won’t get a COVID-19 vaccine

People in my business would like to believe that truth can stop the spread of ignorance the way vaccines have saved millions upon millions of us from contracting polio, flu, measles, whooping cough, mumps, chickenpox and more.

We’d like to believe it, but we know better.

A vaccine works on its own. Once some form of the weakened germs are injected into your body your immune system kicks in, creating antibodies that prevent the full-fledged illness from attacking you.

Truth is different.

Truth cannot be injected. It must be presented. Offered up.

In order for it to work it needs to be understood and accepted.

And that doesn’t always happen. Fact-based evidence can be ignored. That often happens for reasons having more to do with something like politics than, say, public health.

Over the course of our lives we all that, sometimes, very smart people can – and do – make stupid choices.

Still, the sheer number of such individuals can sometimes shock us.

Like when we learn through recent surveys that a very large number of us will not choose to receive a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available.

A PBS NewsHour and Marist poll found that 35% of respondents said they would not get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Other surveys have put the number even higher.

It is a disturbing enough possibility

that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is working on a plan to boost “vaccine confidence.”

By “vaccine confidence” I believe they mean ... common sense. Good luck with that.

Heidi Larson, an anthropologist and head of the Vaccine Confidence Project at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine told Science magazine, “We better use every minute we have between now and when that vaccine or vaccines are ready, because it’s real fragile ground right now.”

The anti-vaccine hysteria has grown over the years, in part after being exacerbated by high-profile individuals like Donald Trump, who has pushed debunked conspiracy theories, as in this dangerously ignorant tweet:

A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine – like many others – found no link between autism and the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.

Researchers looked at more than 650,000 children in that particular study. The process for creating these protections is rigorous and the longterm track record for saving millions of lives is undisputed.

The truth about vaccines is not based on opinions. They are conclusions based on rigorous scientific analysis. On facts.

Vaccines work. Unfortunately, there is yet no cure for stupid.