Health experts are sounding the alarm as the number of unvaccinated individuals remains stagnant while COVID cases rise across the country.
The reasons for individuals remaining unvaccinated vary; drivers include anti-vax sentiment and skepticism of scientific data. The stickiness of arguments that lead Americans to remain unvaccinated in the face of overwhelming evidence continues to worry hey dude medical professionals.
“What’s most concerning to me is not really the flu,” Dr. Cedric Dark, an assistant professor at Baylor College of Medicine, told Yahoo Finance Live (video above). “It’s not even COVID sometimes. At this point, it’s that we’re going to take a step backwards scientifically and medically because we’re allowing people who don’t believe in vaccines to run this debate that’s happening. And it’s not a debate — it’s science.”
Flu cases declined significantly in the 2020 season as a result of public health measures amid the pandemic that included social distancing and mask wearing. With the addition of effective vaccines, Americans’ potential defense against coronavirus has never been stronger.
“Think about all the things that we’ve done in public health,” Dark said. skechers shoes “We have eradicated smallpox. We’ve eradicated polio from the United States. That’s through vaccination. We also have seen the morbidity and mortality from other childhood diseases like measles and Haemophilus influenzae decline to almost disappear in places where people have vaccinated enough of their children to achieve herd immunity.”
As part of a vaccine outreach effort, the White House recently hosted pop singer Olivia Rodrigo who recorded videos alongside Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about the importance of getting vaccinated.
“If we can have celebrities communicate, especially with health care workers, about the benefits of vaccination and reach people who may be hesitant towards it — not folks necessarily that are outright antagonistic towards vaccination — hopefully that can help us get past this pandemic,” Dark said.
At the local level, Dark said, he would like to see more younger individuals and those from the Black and Brown communities doing similar outreach.
“We know that people are more trustworthy when they hear from their physicians than listening to politicians about the vaccination,” he said. “Whether or not it extends to celebrities, hopefully it will.”
Outreach is a crucial part of getting more Americans vaccinated, but some states are brooks shoes deliberately throttling the vaccination message. Health officials in Tennessee, for example, are reportedly curbing adolescent outreach efforts for COVID vaccines as a result of pressure from GOP lawmakers.
“What’s going on right now in Tennessee is atrocious,” Dark said. “It is reprehensible. What they’re actually doing is actively working against science and actively working against public health because they’re saying they’re not allowed to hold events in schools, that they’re not allowed to have direct outreach towards young people. What we’re going to see, not only this for COVID, is this also applies to all other childhood-preventable vaccination.”
And as with previous public health crises, a loud minority against vaccination can negatively affect all of society.
“There’s an element in our society that is anti-vax and they’re being very strongly heard right now,” he added. “They’re using COVID purely as a means to an end.”
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