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Kiersten Essenpreis for BuzzFeed News<\/p><\/div>\n
Every day for the last month or so, roughly 2 million to 3 million\u00a0coronavirus<\/a>\u00a0vaccines have been injected into arms across the United States. And with each shot, with each vaccine selfie posted to social media, the eventual\u00a0end of the pandemic<\/a>\u00a0inches ever closer.<\/p>\n As the vaccine rollout has improved,\u00a0more than 140 million Americans<\/a>\u00a0have now received at least one dose. But in parts of the country, officials have slowly shifted their focus\u00a0from issues of supply to issues of demand<\/a>. In some states where\u00a0demand for a shot is flattening<\/a>, those in charge of the rollout are now doing everything they can to try to convince the\u00a0vaccine holdouts<\/a>. That has included enlisting\u00a0trusted local doctors<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0church pastors<\/a>\u00a0as well as producing a\u00a0star-studded TV special<\/a>. But, for many people,\u00a0conversations with friends and family members<\/a> are the most influential method.<\/p>\n BuzzFeed News\u00a0asked readers to share their experiences<\/a>\u00a0convincing wary loved ones to sign up for a COVID-19 shot. We received almost 170 responses (including only two from anti-vaccine trolls!) from people who opened up about deeply personal and emotional conversations they had with family members and friends. In subsequent interviews, respondents said they shared scientific evidence that the vaccines authorized in the US are\u00a0overwhelmingly safe and effective<\/a>. They tried listening in good faith to people\u2019s fears and concerns and responding in kind. They tried debunking the misinformation that was spreading on social media.<\/p>\n But then they got creative \u2014 and it worked.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One of the most common tactics employed by readers was also one of the harshest: withholding grandchildren. Roughly a dozen said that either they or their siblings had threatened to keep their parents from seeing their grandchildren unless they were vaccinated first.<\/p>\n \u201cHe wasn\u2019t going to listen to any arguments about anything else,\u201d said Paloma Rodriguez, a 37-year-old in Miami whose sister in New Jersey wouldn\u2019t let their unvaccinated 66-year-old father see his twin 5-year-old grandkids. \u201cI think it\u2019s just easier to understand: You get to see the kids if you\u2019re vaccinated; you don\u2019t get to see them if you\u2019re not vaccinated. There\u2019s no back-and-forth.\u201d<\/p>\n Because children under 16 have not yet been authorized to receive a vaccine, Rodriguez believes grandparents might be more sympathetic to the notion of grandkids\u2019 safety. After all, it worked on her dad. Following a year of only talking to his grandkids on FaceTime, he is now vaccinated and eagerly planning a trip to see them.<\/p>\n Liz Alvarez, a 30-year-old in Culver City, California, who is 15 weeks pregnant, said her parents and parents-in-law both decided to get their doses to avoid being excluded from meeting their first grandchild. \u201cI think it can be a powerful tool because it really goes down to people\u2019s beliefs, and maybe those beliefs aren\u2019t as cemented as they thought,\u201d she said. \u201cTheir love for their children might override whatever else they\u2019re thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n But it isn\u2019t just about cutting off access to grandchildren. Several readers said they would refuse to visit loved ones until they were all vaccinated.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Anthony, a 36-year-old in Midvale, Utah, told his family he wouldn\u2019t feel safe flying to see them in New York; if he were asymptomatic, he would risk infecting them. He said he used emotions rather than rationality to frame his argument because that would resonate with their conservative politics. \u201cThe easiest route to get my family to be safe was to reason with their heart instead of their head,\u201d said Anthony, who asked only to be identified by his first name so as not to spotlight his family. \u201cIt\u2019s the science stuff they get lost in. They don\u2019t care about that. It\u2019s more of a feeling for them.\u201d<\/p>\n For some readers, potentially missing a big family event like a wedding or funeral was the straw that broke the vaccine-skeptic camel\u2019s back. Kate Wasson, a 20-year-old set to graduate from New Jersey\u2019s Seton Hall University, said she and her mother gently made it clear to her 77-year-old grandfather in Las Vegas that being vaccinated was a prerequisite for attending her May 20 ceremony. \u201cGiven this was such a big deal and it was really important to me and my family, I think he eventually realized he wanted to be a part of that, especially after a year of being quarantined from us,\u201d Wasson said. \u201cI think that\u2019s why he caved.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, for those on the other side of these familial threats, it isn\u2019t always necessarily about being convinced. Sometimes it\u2019s just about capitulating.<\/p>\n Simone Williams, a 30-year-old from Decatur, Georgia, said she didn\u2019t feel compelled to get a vaccine; as a Black woman, she was skeptical in light of past\u00a0medical experiments on Black people<\/a>. But over a recent family dinner, her mother, a cancer survivor and caregiver to Williams\u2019 grandmother, told her she would not be welcome in their home unless she got the shot. \u201cI was really shocked that she was willing to not have me come to my childhood home,\u201d Williams said. \u201cShe was really serious. I didn\u2019t know if she would change the locks on me!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Despite her reservations, Williams relented. The fear of not being able to see her family \u2014 and enjoy their cooking \u2014 won out. Her mother even helped her sign up for an appointment and drove her to a local football stadium where she received her vaccine. \u201cThe soldier asked how I was doing, and I jokingly told him that I was doing this under duress and if that is legal,\u201d she said. \u201cHe heard the nervousness in my voice and just let me know that everything will be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n As more and more people get vaccinated, a fear of being left behind or excluded might be motivating some family members, readers told us. Raine Vanderoef, 35, of Costa Mesa, California, said his mother had been reading about the vaccines but still wanted to take a wait-and-see approach. \u201cWhen my mom got news that I got the first shot, I believe my dad kept making subtle comments at home like \u2018Once we are vaccinated, Raine and I can go to a Dodgers game together\u2019 or \u2018Raine and I can go on a vacation and you\u2019ll have to stay behind,\u2019\u201d Vanderoef said. \u201dI think those comments, even if they were made jokingly, really motivated her.\u201d<\/p>\n Some readers framed their threats to avoid family members in medical terms, stressing that they or their loved one was immunocompromised and that having everyone in the family vaccinated would help protect them. Amelia Tuttle, a 31-year-old who lives outside of Augusta, Maine, has a younger sister in Oregon who is recovering from Hodgkin\u2019s disease. \u201cI had the conversation with my dad on Easter that if she were to come visit us, she couldn\u2019t be around anyone who hadn\u2019t had the vaccine,\u201d Tuttle said. \u201cHe had a discussion with his doctor the next day and got the vaccine shortly after.\u201d<\/p>\n She added, \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t ever admit this, but I know that my sister is his favorite kid. I don\u2019t take any offense to it! That\u2019s part of it, though \u2014 him just wanting to see her and be reunited with her.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For others, getting vaccinated has a commercial implication. Amanda Costello, 27, runs an organic meat business in Tivoli in upstate New York with her 32-year-old fianc\u00e9. She\u2019d jumped at the chance to receive her shots, but he\u2019d been more wary after reading rumors on Facebook, Costello said. Over Easter, she made a delivery to a restaurant, staffers of which, she later found out, had just contracted COVID-19. When the restaurant closed, Costello and her fianc\u00e9 lost a chunk of income \u2014 but because she\u2019d been the one to make the delivery and was asymptomatic and vaccinated, she\u00a0didn\u2019t need to self-quarantine<\/a>\u00a0and risk losing even more money. Things would\u2019ve been very different had her unvaccinated fianc\u00e9 been the one to make the delivery. \u201cHe realized he could\u2019ve put our entire business in jeopardy,\u201d Costello said. \u201cThat was his breaking point. He got his second dose yesterday.\u201d<\/p>\n Several people successfully convinced their loved ones that getting vaccinated was the fastest way that they \u2014 and society at large \u2014 could get back to \u201cnormal.\u201d One reader said she told her cruise-loving parents that\u00a0several<\/a>\u00a0major<\/a>\u00a0companies were requiring guests to be fully vaccinated before boarding their ocean liners, while another reader said her mother was ultimately swayed by the chance to return to in-person church services. Two readers said they\u2019d threatened to cancel their upcoming summer vacations with their partners; they worried they wouldn\u2019t be able to safely enjoy bars and restaurants and that it would be expensive if they were to contract COVID-19 abroad. One reader suspected her mother finally relented simply because she was sick of wearing a mask, and the\u00a0CDC\u2019s updated guidance<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 that vaccinated people don\u2019t have to wear a mask\u00a0indoors<\/a>\u00a0(around other vaccinated people) or\u00a0outdoors<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 had won her over.<\/p>\n For those whose loved ones who have been ignoring the CDC\u2019s advice during the pandemic, getting a vaccine also carried the positive side effect of ending family arguments. Laura, a 30-year-old in Glendale, California, who asked only to be identified by her first name, said her retired 70-year-old mother had been frequently visiting her former colleagues at the bank she used to work at. She\u2019d also been soliciting hair salons and \u201cspeakeasy\u201d nail salons that were secretly defying shutdown orders. This led to some heated arguments between the pair. \u201cShe was angry that I was working and because of that I got to go outside, and she felt that I was trying to jail her,\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Finally, she made her mother a promise: If you get the vaccine, I\u2019ll stop complaining about what you\u2019re getting up to. \u201cI said, \u2018If you get this shot, we will not fight anymore, because I am tired of fighting.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Even though Laura\u2019s mother is an anti-vaxxer, the promise worked. \u201cSince she got the vaccine, we don\u2019t really have fights anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cI said, \u2018Go do what you want to do.\u2019 I\u2019ve kept my promise.\u201d<\/p>\n In many cases, though, actions spoke louder than words. Several respondents said their loved ones\u2019 fears were placated as others in the family received their doses. \u201cWhat convinced [my mother] to get it is not exactly anything I told her but the simple act of seeing three of her children get vaccinated that put her at ease,\u201d said Bryan Sarabia, a 19-year-old first-year journalism student at the University of Southern California.<\/p>\n \u201cIt seemed like [my grandparents] just wanted to hear about the experience from someone they knew and trusted,\u201d said Emily Taylor, a 26-year-old teacher in Hawaii.<\/p>\n Those with medical or scientific backgrounds told BuzzFeed News they had to lead by example. Andrea Wolffing, a surgeon in Lebanon, New Hampshire, said she\u2019d been able to convince a wary friend by drawing from her expertise. \u201cI figured that the best example would be to get the vaccine myself and tell them everything I could behind my experience with any side effects, the science behind the vaccine, etc.,\u201d Wolffing said.<\/p>\n Registered nurse Gail Chapin has been working 40-hour weeks testing employees at an Amazon warehouse in Carlisle, Pennsylvania,<\/b>\u00a0where she\u2019s become quite fond of the staff \u201cafter becoming so intimately involved with their nasal passages.\u201d She\u2019s tried talking through how the vaccines were developed, sharing the history of vaccines in eradicating other diseases, and even bribing them with candy. But, she said, for the young men she works with, she often brings up research showing that those who contract COVID-19 are six times more likely to\u00a0develop erectile dysfunction<\/a>. \u201cThat gets them every time!\u201d Chapin said.<\/p>\n In that vein, several of the answers we received from readers were especially creative and, well, just plain funny:<\/p>\n Other readers went right for the emotional jugular, so to speak, and resorted to some particularly extreme measures to guilt their loved ones.<\/p>\n A 31-year-old woman in Toronto, who asked to remain anonymous, said her mother is a devout Catholic who grew up in rural India and was skeptical of the corporate biotech industry in North America. She told her mother that if she died from COVID-19 after refusing a vaccine, the young woman would refuse to organize a funeral or perform traditional death rites. \u201cIt was extremely heartbreaking for my mom to hear that \u2014 that\u00a0this<\/i>\u00a0was something she was doing that was so bad that I wouldn\u2019t do\u00a0that<\/i>\u00a0for her made her understand how serious it was,\u201d the woman said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n She added, \u201cCatholic guilt is the way my mom gets most of her stuff done, so I just used her own medicine, and that worked really well.\u201d<\/p>\n Others\u2019 tactics were simpler but still played on the heartstrings. \u201cI told him he wouldn\u2019t be invited to our wedding, which we had rescheduled three times,\u201d said Esther, a 30-year-old resident of Oakland. \u201cHe\u2019s the groom.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, many readers said the most effective way to break through to those dear to them was much simpler: love.<\/p>\n Rox Laslett, a 32-year-old food designer based in the French city of Toulouse, said her mother, a homeopathist, has long avoided vaccines. But Laslett told her of a friend\u2019s father\u2019s death from COVID-19 and said how grief-stricken Laslett would be if her mother died. \u201cShe caved because we asked her to do it for us, to give her the opportunity to live maybe longer, to do it for love,\u201d Laslett said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we believed in.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cLove is the most important thing right now,\u201d she said. \u201cLove is the best remedy.\u201d \u25cf<\/p>\n\n
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