5 takeaways:
➀A singular focus on vaccination numbers obscures important rollout strategies. Media coverage in the first months of COVID-19 vaccine rollout has focused on the number of shots available and the percentage of the population that has been vaccinated. Those metrics are tailor-made for state-to-state comparisons. For example: By Feb. 28, more than 20% of the population in Alaska had been vaccinated, compared with 12% in Georgia. (Here is a list of academic, government and media COVID trackers.) But those headline numbers might mask important decisions being made in states to prioritize vulnerable populations or boost equity among different populations. “All of the states have had their hands forced a little bit on how they approach vaccination because it’s just been such a huge public demand – and so much pressure to vaccinate as quickly as possible,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. “The downside of that is you’re going to lose equity when you do that. The more this becomes a first-come, first-served system, the more it becomes inequitable.”
➁ Demand is overwhelming now but will ease. Dr. Umair Shah, secretary of the Washington State Department of Health and before that the top public health official for Harris County (Houston) in Texas, said that the supply/demand equation right now is 10-to-1. “Ten people ready to jump into the seat for every vaccine we have available,” Shah said. “Supply will increase in time, and when that happens we are going to have this real issue of vaccine hesitancy that’s going to potentially rear its ugly head.”
➂ The media play an important role in helping ease vaccine hesitancy. While demand for available doses is heavy in the early months of the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, there are pockets of the country where people are hesitant about or hostile to the vaccine, particularly in some communities of color. Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said his group, joined by the Ad Council and the COVID Collaborative, is launching an ad campaign in seven languages. “The goal is to try to get people to move from being vaccine curious to vaccine confident to actually getting the vaccine,” Benjamin said.
➃ Disparities in vaccinations might be due to access, not hesitancy. “It looks like a lot of white people and higher-income individuals are getting vaccinated,” said Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health. “One narrative that I heard a lot of was, ‘Oh well, the other populations – there’s more vaccine hesitancy.’ I think we are confusing hesitancy with access.” Hesitancy in minority communities must be addressed, but some of that could be overcome with better outreach, transportation and access, including for people who don’t have time to “sign on 200 times in an hour to try to book an appointment,” Wen said.
➄ The end of the pandemic is in sight. The public health experts agreed that the vaccines already approved are very effective in preventing hospitalizations and death. “We need to get a lot better about talking about the freedoms that people have once they are vaccinated,” Wen said, including “seeing other fully vaccinated people (and) being able to be indoors, no masks, hugging them – no restrictions essentially with other people who are fully vaccinated.”
This program was funded by Arnold Ventures. NPF is solely responsible for the content.
