Vaccine acceptance hinges on transparent communication
23:37
Vaccine acceptance is key to the success of Covid-19 vaccination campaigns worldwide. Worryingly, over a quarter of people living in Europe are hesitant about taking a COVID-19 vaccine, and the level of hesitancy is especially high among heavy users of social media. The spread of misinformation on social media is an obstacle to reaching the goal of herd immunity against the coronavirus. Strategies to communicate clear and unbiased political and scientific information are needed to counter the effect of misinformation.
Reaching vaccination targets has been difficult despite the triumphant development of new vaccine technologies. Developing, testing, authorizing, manufacturing, allocating, and disseminating vaccines is a Herculean task. The challenges are amplified as countries race against time to deal with the emergence of new virus variants and to reach herd immunity against the virus.
Lack of public confidence in and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines could prove to be another major hurdle. Over a quarter (27 percent) of people living in Europe say that they are unlikely to take the Covid-19 vaccine. This hesitancy varies by country and by individual characteristics, including age, gender, and educational level. Some of the starkest differences in vaccine hesitancy can be seen between people who use social media heavily and those who do not.
Vaccine hesitancy is most common among people whose main source of news is social media or blogs, with 40 percent of this group saying they are unlikely to take a vaccine when one becomes available to them. In contrast, in the combined group of people who use traditional media (radio, television, or the press) as their main source of news, under one-fifth (18 percent) say they are unlikely to accept a vaccine.
Since mid-June, the Polish Ministry of Health has launched a vaccination counter.
“There is no madness because we are still far from a safe 70 percent vaccinated The first thing that worries me is that I meet many patients who are clearly against vaccinations,” Dr. Tomasz Karauda, who worked for many months at the covid ward in Łódź, and also at the family clinic, said.
“Black spots of unvaccinated communes on the map of Poland are a cause for fear. Because if there is another wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the fall, this is where the Covid-19 outbreaks will be,” Dr. Piotr Krawczyk, a contagious doctor from Łódź, warned.
(WBJ, Gazeta.pl)
