This article isn’t about conservatives of any color who are reluctant to get vaccinated. It’s an interview with a black physician about vaccine hesitancy among black Americans, who are the group least likely to have been vaccinated. This explains the willingness of the editors at The Atlantic<\/u> to allow a sympathetic, and also condescending, article that takes a look at them.<\/p>\n
These leftists have been hoist on their own petard. For decades they’ve argued that blacks are right to distrust the American medical establishment and are now trying to figure out how to reverse course without alienating one of their major voting blocks.<\/p>\n
America Is Getting Unvaccinated People All Wrong:<\/a> Last week, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky said that COVID-19 is \u201cbecoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated<\/a>.\u201d President Joe Biden said much the same shortly after. They are technically correct.\u00a0Even against the fast-spreading Delta variant<\/a>, the vaccines remain highly effective, and people who haven\u2019t received them are falling sick far more often than those who have. But their vulnerability to COVID-19 is the only thing that unvaccinated people universally share. They are disparate in almost every way that matters, including why they haven\u2019t yet been vaccinated and what it might take to persuade them. \u201c\u2018The unvaccinated\u2019 are not a monolith of defectors,\u201d\u00a0Rhea Boyd<\/a>, a pediatrician and public-health advocate in the San Francisco Bay Area,\u00a0tweeted<\/a>\u00a0on Saturday.<\/p>\n Boyd has been talking to underserved communities about COVID-19 vaccines since November, before any were even formally authorized. Together with several partner organizations, she co-developed a national campaign called The Conversation<\/a>, in which Black and Latino health-care workers provide information (and dispel misinformation) about the vaccines. She has spoken virtually to dozens of community groups, including churches and schools, fielding their questions about the shots. I reached out to Boyd because I wanted to know what she has learned through all these encounters about why some people are still unvaccinated and what to do about it.<\/p>\n Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n Ed Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>You recently spoke with people in southern Georgia who had many lingering questions about vaccines. On Twitter, you said, \u201cEvery question they asked was legitimate and important.\u201d Tell me more about the event and the questions you were getting.<\/p>\n Rhea Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>It was a tele-townhall, and around 5,000 people participated. I would have imagined that people who stayed on would be unvaccinated, but the people who asked questions were a mix. I had one gentleman who was\u00a0vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson<\/a>\u00a0and he asked, \u201cDid I get a safe shot?\u201d We affirmed for him that this far after his vaccination, he\u2019s likely safe, but that opened my eyes. If you\u2019ve heard about\u00a0that serious side effect<\/a>\u00a0and are worried if you\u2019re at risk, you\u2019re probably not encouraging the people around you to be vaccinated.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>That\u2019s fascinating to me. There\u2019s a tendency to assume that all vaccinated people are pro-vaccine and all unvaccinated people are anti-vaccine. But your experience suggests that there\u2019s also vaccine hesitancy\u00a0among vaccinated people.<\/em><\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, and we tend to hear similar questions among people who are unvaccinated. They may also have heard common threads of disinformation, but they\u2019re still asking basic questions. The top one is around side effects, which are one of the main things we talk about when we give informed consent for any procedure. If people aren\u2019t sure about that, it\u2019s no wonder they\u2019re still saying no.<\/p>\n A lot of vaccine information isn\u2019t common knowledge.\u00a0Not everyone has access to Google<\/a>. This illustrates preexisting fault lines in our health-care system, where resources\u2014including credible information\u2014don\u2019t get to everyone. The information gap is driving the vaccination gap. And language that blames \u201cthe unvaccinated\u201d misses that critical point. Black folks are one of the least vaccinated groups, in part because they have the least access to preventive health-care services.<\/p>\n Yong:<\/strong>\u00a0I\u2019m glad you raised\u00a0the issue of access<\/a>. Everyone age 12 and up is now eligible for vaccines, and President Biden promised that 90 percent of people would have a vaccination site within five miles of their home. I\u2019ve heard many people doubt that vaccine access is still an issue and, by extension, that anyone who is still unvaccinated must be hesitant or resistant. Do you disagree?<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>Availability and access<\/a>\u00a0aren\u2019t the same thing. If you have to walk the five miles, you\u2019re going to rethink getting vaccinated, especially if you\u2019re elderly, or you have chronic disease, or the round trip is interfering with other things like work. [Much of] our paid workforce doesn\u2019t have flexibility about hours, or couldn\u2019t take a day off if they wanted to. And if you don\u2019t have paid sick leave to deal with the vaccine or the potential side effects of the second dose, you\u2019ll skip it because feeding your family is more important right now.<\/p>\n Child care is also an enormous issue. If you don\u2019t have someone to watch your children, then what do you do? Many of these things the Biden administration has tried to address. They have programs involving\u00a0Uber and Lyft<\/a>.\u00a0Child-care organizations<\/a>\u00a0have signed on to help with vaccine appointments. There are\u00a0tax breaks for companies that offer paid sick leave<\/a>. These are incredible, but they may not filter down to your area. We need to think about local interventions to help stretch them.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>If these barriers to access were all addressed, do you have a sense of the proportion of people who would then get vaccinated?<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>The truth is we don\u2019t know. If you\u2019re not getting vaccinated, we have even less data on you than if you are vaccinated. But we know that these barriers exist for even basic care. How do we make sense of the fact that some people won\u2019t get critical medications, like their diabetes medications? Or that some people forgo necessary medical care even as they experience complications from chronic illness? It\u2019s not that those individuals don\u2019t want basic medical care! It\u2019s that groups face structural barriers to accessing that care, including rural folks, underinsured folks, and Black folks in particular. Those structural barriers are likely at play for vaccinations too. This is a problem for health care more generally. We\u2019ve been willing to move on without people, while leaving them without resources to fend for themselves.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>What about people at the other extreme, who do have easy access but who are vitriolically opposed to vaccines\u2014people who could more reasonably be described as anti-vaxxers?<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>Anti-vaxxers are incredibly vocal, and because of that, they\u2019ve been a disproportionate focus of our vaccine outreach. But I think that they represent a small part of people in this country, and especially in our communities of color, an irrelevant part. In our work, we haven\u2019t given much credence to their bluster. But the rampant disinformation that\u2019s put out by this minority has shaped our public discourse, and has led to this collective vitriol toward the \u201cunvaccinated\u201d as if they are predominantly a group of anti-vaxxers. The people we\u2019re really trying to move are not.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>I\u2019ve never thought of it that way. We\u2019re used to thinking of anti-vaxxers as sowing distrust about vaccines. But you\u2019re arguing that they\u2019ve also successfully sown distrust about\u00a0unvaccinated people<\/em>, many of whom are now harder to reach because they\u2019ve been broadly demonized.<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes. The language we use around unvaccinated people comes with a judgment\u2014a condescension that \u201cyou\u2019re unvaccinated and it\u2019s your choice at this point.\u201d That attitude is papering Twitter. It\u2019s repeated by our top public-health officials. They\u2019re railing on the unvaccinated as if they\u2019re holding the rest of us back from normalcy. But unvaccinated people aren\u2019t a random group of defectors who are trying to be deviant. They\u2019re not all anti-vaxxers. They\u2019re our kids! Any child under 12 is in that group.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>Okay, but even if extreme cases are a minority, we can\u2019t ignore them.\u00a0When I reported on the ongoing surge in Missouri<\/a>, a hospital chief told me that one patient spat in a nurse\u2019s eye because she told him he had COVID-19 and he didn\u2019t believe her. How do you think about folks who have gotten to that point?<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>These very contentious encounters are driven by people really staunchly holding on to something that they are served by in some way. Maybe it\u2019s the source that belief came from, and they need to believe other things that source says. Maybe they want camaraderie or collegiality with people around them, so they can feel that they\u2019re in an in-group. People\u00a0need<\/em>\u00a0to believe that what they believe is true. They feel threatened when challenged about something to which they feel beholden. The best way to address that may not be to actually challenge them one-on-one, but to shift what people around them are talking about. If you hear enough stories in your Facebook feed or from strangers in the store that reinforce the science, it\u2019ll make what you\u2019re saying less reasonable to you. And less useful to you. And once you don\u2019t need to hold on to it, you can let it go.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>Which is why community-based efforts are so important. People who will be swayed by Anthony Fauci are already listening to him. But, for example, public-health professionals I spoke with in Missouri are trying to get pastors, firefighters, and community leaders to act as trusted voices for their own people.<\/p>\n Boyd:<\/strong>\u00a0Exactly. At the beginning of the pandemic, we drew on data about how physicians of color were trusted messengers for communities of color. But there are so few of us\u2014only\u00a05 percent of our physician workforce is Black<\/a>. That isn\u2019t enough. But I think we\u2019re too limited in our thinking about who is a trusted messenger. People use informal communication chains: They have side conversations with the grocery-store clerk, or their niece and nephew. People will believe anecdotal health-care information that their family member suggests over the credible info that a health-care professional is giving.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve talked to virtual faith-based groups on Sundays. We\u2019ve talked to barbershops, after-school organizations, and boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 clubs. Some of these groups are small\u2014hundreds of people, or sometimes just 20. People are then much more specific about their concerns without the things they usually have bluster around. I wonder how many people arrogantly respond about vaccinations during more formal conversations, but then come to our events and share something vulnerable in these protected settings where they\u2019re surrounded by their pastor and people they know.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>This has the added benefit of promoting vaccinations among groups of people who are likely to encounter one another. My concern, however, is that this is slow work\u2014and Delta is moving fast. Does it feel like you\u2019re stuck in a war of attrition against misinformation, while time is running out?<\/p>\n Boyd:<\/strong>\u00a0It\u2019s true. Now that vaccines aren\u2019t novel, we\u2019ve lost some of that early momentum when people would go to their local Walgreens. Now we have to do the heavy, high-touch work, making sure that we proactively reach out to everyone. And we can only go as fast as people are willing to go.<\/p>\n That\u2019s concerning, and it\u2019s why we need to\u00a0reimplement mitigation strategies<\/a>, like\u00a0indoor masking<\/a>, in addition to vaccination. That\u2019ll give us the time to do the work. No form of mitigation will block transmission 100 percent, but we have to use them together. When the cavalry arrives, it\u2019s not like all the other soldiers on the field just leave.<\/p>\n Yong:\u00a0<\/strong>When I talk to people about the vaccination challenge, the main emotions I hear are\u00a0frustration and despair<\/a>. So perhaps the most surprising part of this conversation for me is that you sound \u2026 hopeful?<\/p>\n Boyd:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes. I feel enormously hopeful. If I was only going off what I saw online, I\u2019d probably agree that everyone who wasn\u2019t vaccinated is being selfish and difficult. But talking to people like those church groups has changed how I feel completely. Often, I see an entire family on the other side of the screen\u2014kids and grandparents. People come. They come in groups. They\u2019re willing to be vulnerable. They have questions. And their questions are all ones we have answers for. It\u2019s not undoable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This article isn’t about conservatives of any color who are reluctant to get vaccinated. It’s an interview with a black physician about vaccine hesitancy among black Americans, who are the group least likely to have been vaccinated. This explains the willingness of the editors at The Atlantic to allow a sympathetic, and also condescending, article … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70088"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70093,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70088\/revisions\/70093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThey\u2019re not all anti-vaxxers, and treating them as such is making things worse.<\/em><\/p>\n
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