To Vax or Not to Vax? That is the Question

The Biden Administration, whose ambitious plan is to vaccinate 300 million Americans by the end of the summer, released some good news yesterday. The ‘Prez’ announced that there will be enough vaccines to meet their goal by the end of May.

However, getting shots into arms faces some challenges, and not all are related to distribution or production. According to a recent survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, 18.5% of the 18 and older population say they will either probably not or definitely not get the vaccination when given the opportunity. The good news for people believing in herd-immunity (currently stated to be when 75%-80% of the country is vaccinated), is that this figure is down from 38% just three months ago.

But still challenging is that nationwide, 8.0% of the eligible population do not trust the COVID-19 vaccines, 3.4%, are anti-vaccines in general, and 7.1% of those eligible will likely refuse a vaccination because they do not trust the government.

Things are a bit different in California, where approximately 12.6% of the eligible population say they will likely refuse the vaccine. Of these eligible folks, 4.9% will refuse because they do not trust the COVID-19 vaccine specifically, 3.2% because they are against vaccinations in general, and 3.5% because they distrust the government.

So, based on that, we may never get to true herd-immunity. Or will we?