https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/20/trump-vaccines-ex-aides-483387Completing the Jab
There are different groups of Americans who are not yet vaccinated: people of color, lower income people, people with less transportation access, people with less computer access, people with misinformation, people with little or no information, people only recently eligible for the vaccines, Trump voters and evangelical Christians. They are not all the same people; they have very different reasons for not being vaccinated.
About a quarter of Americans are vaccine-hesitant or vaccine resistant for a variety of historical reasons. https://abcnews.go.com/Health/things-scientists-learned-vaccine-hesitancy-analysis/story?id=77127290 That still means another quarter are not resistant, nor hesitant, but have simply not yet been vaccinated.
I think the highest priority is reaching all those who wish to be vaccinated and have not yet gotten access – the low hanging fruit. The next priority should be reaching those at high risk who are nevertheless vaccine hesitant – the most endangered.
If you look at the map of infections and vaccinations in LA County, you will see that the communities with the highest rates of Covid infections, hospitalizations and deaths are also the areas with the lowest vaccination rates. http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/vaccine/vaccine-dashboard.htm and http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/coronavirus/locations.htm#recent-trends In LA, we are not yet doing as good a job vaccinating people with lower incomes, people of color and immigrants as we are in vaccinating the affluent and well educated. That has to change. The messengers have to be different and reinforcing for different populations: local doctors, local ministers, family members, trusted messengers to the particular subset, and the media of all kinds.
One of the issues that must be addressed is the possible linkage between the J and J vaccine and dangerous blood clots in younger women 18-48; it is a one in a million occurrence to date, but the public needs to have all the scientific information about the risks and benefits of this new vaccine.
The toughest group to vaccinate will be those deeply steeped in misinformation about Covid 19 and the vaccines, and for the moment, they have to be a lower priority because their resistance is so high and not readily dispelled by the available scientific information. Republican, evangelical men are proportionately at least, the most resistant group. They can be reached as the social and political climate reduces the toxicity of the messages about Covid and vaccinations they have been receiving. Trump and Trump supporting local preachers could be effective in reaching those who are most resistant due to their political and religious affiliations. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/17/us/vaccine-hesitancy-politics.html and https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/us/covid-vaccine-evangelicals.html Fox News could tell its hosts like Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity to promote Covid vaccines rather than embracing the unsubstantiated screeds of the most virulent anti-vaxxers. https://newrepublic.com/article/161746/tucker-carlson-leading-anti-vax-right Some in Trump’s circle are encouraging him to become a spokesperson supporting the vaccine to his hesitant followers, but so far without any success in moving the ex-President who seems still caught up in denouncing the recent Presidential election results. https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/20/trump-vaccines-ex-aides-483387