Several days ago<\/span>, the mega-popular podcast host Joe Rogan advised his young listeners to skip the COVID-19 vaccine. \u201cI think you should get vaccinated if you\u2019re vulnerable,\u201d Rogan said. \u201cBut if you\u2019re 21 years old, and you say to me, \u2018Should I get vaccinated?\u2019 I\u2019ll go, \u2018No.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rogan\u2019s comments drew widespread condemnation. But his view is surprisingly common. One in four Americans\u00a0says<\/a>\u00a0they don\u2019t plan to take the COVID-19 vaccine, and about half of Republicans under 50 say they won\u2019t get a vaccine. This partisan vaccine gap is already playing out in the real world. The average number of daily shots has declined 20 percent in the past two weeks, largely because states with larger Trump vote shares are\u00a0falling off the pace<\/a>.<\/p>\n What are they thinking, these vaccine-hesitant, vaccine-resistant, and COVID-apathetic? I wanted to know. So I posted an invitation on Twitter for anybody who wasn\u2019t planning to get vaccinated to email me and explain why. In the past few days, I spoke or corresponded with more than a dozen such people. I told them that I was\u00a0staunchly pro-vaccine<\/a>, but this wouldn\u2019t be a takedown piece. I wanted to produce an ethnography of a position I didn\u2019t really understand.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Many people said they had read up on the risk of COVID-19 to people under 50 and felt that the pandemic didn\u2019t pose a particularly grave threat. \u201cThe chances of me dying from a car accident are higher than my dying of COVID,\u201d said Michael Searle, a 36-year-old who owns a consulting firm in Austin, Texas. \u201cBut it\u2019s not like I don\u2019t get in my car.\u201d<\/p>\n And many others said that perceived liberal overreach had pushed them to the right. \u201cBefore March 2020, I was a solid progressive Democrat,\u201d Jenin Younes, a 37-year-old attorney, said. \u201cI am so disturbed by the Democrats\u2019 failure to recognize the importance of civil liberties. I\u2019ll vote for anyone who takes a strong stand for civil liberties and doesn\u2019t permit the erosion of our fundamental rights that we are seeing now.\u201d Baca, the Colorado truck driver, also told me he didn\u2019t vote much before the pandemic, but the perception of liberal overreach had a strong politicizing effect. \u201cWhen COVID hit, I saw rights being taken away. So in 2020, I voted for the first time in my life, and I voted all the way Republican down the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n After many conversations and email exchanges, I came to understand what I think of as the deep story of the American no-vaxxer. And I think the best way to see it clearly is to contrast it with my own story.<\/p>\n My view of the vaccines begins with my view of the pandemic. I really don\u2019t want to get COVID-19. Not only do I want to avoid an illness with uncertain long-term implications, but I also don\u2019t want to pass it along to somebody in a high-risk category, such as my grandmother or an immunocompromised stranger. For more than a year, I radically changed my life to avoid infection. So I was thrilled to hear that the vaccines were effective at blocking severe illness and transmission. I eagerly signed up to take both my shots, even after reading all about the side effects.The under-50 no-vaxxers\u2019 deep story has a very different starting place. It begins like this:<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The coronavirus is a wildly overrated threat. Yes, it\u2019s appropriate and good to protect old and vulnerable people. But I\u2019m not old or vulnerable. If I get it, I\u2019ll be fine. In fact, maybe I have gotten it, and I\u00a0am<\/em>\u00a0fine. I don\u2019t know why I should consider this disease more dangerous than driving a car, a risky thing I do every day without a moment\u2019s worry. Liberals, Democrats, and public-health elites have been so wrong so often, we\u2019d be better off doing the opposite of almost everything they say.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n David A. Graham: It\u2019s not vaccine hesitancy. It\u2019s COVID denialism.<\/a><\/p>\n Just as my COVID-19 story shapes my vaccine eagerness, this group\u2019s COVID-19 story shapes their vaccine skepticism. Again and again, I heard variations on this theme:<\/p>\n I don\u2019t need some novel pharmaceutical product to give me permission to do the things I\u2019m already doing. This isn\u2019t even an FDA-approved vaccine; it\u2019s authorized for an\u00a0emergency<\/em>. Well, I don\u2019t consider COVID-19 a personal emergency. So why would I sign up to be an early guinea pig for a therapy that I don\u2019t need, whose long-term effects we don\u2019t understand? I\u2019d rather bet on my immune system than on Big Pharma.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n For both yes-vaxxers like me and the no-vaxxers I spoke with, feelings about the vaccine are intertwined with feelings about the pandemic.<\/p>\n Although I think I\u2019m right about the vaccines, the truth is that my thinking on this issue is motivated. I canceled vacations, canceled my wedding, avoided indoor dining, and mostly stayed home for 15 months. All that sucked. I am\u00a0rooting<\/em>\u00a0for the vaccines to work.<\/p>\n But the no-vaxxers I spoke with just don\u2019t care. They\u2019ve traveled, eaten in restaurants, gathered with friends inside, gotten COVID-19 or not gotten COVID-19, survived, and decided it was no big deal. What\u2019s more, they\u2019ve survived while flouting the advice of the CDC, the WHO, Anthony Fauci, Democratic lawmakers, and liberals, whom they don\u2019t trust to give them straight answers on anything virus-related.<\/p>\n The no-vaxxers\u2019 reasoning is motivated too. Specifically, they\u2019re motivated to distrust public-health authorities who they\u2019ve decided are a bunch of phony neurotics, and they\u2019re motivated to see the vaccines as a risky pharmaceutical experiment, rather than as a clear breakthrough that might restore normal life (which, again, they barely stopped living). This is the no-vaxxer deep story in a nutshell:\u00a0I trust my own cells more than I trust pharmaceutical goop; I trust my own mind more than I trust liberal elites<\/em>\u202a.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n So what will\u00a0<\/span>change their minds?<\/p>\n I cannot imagine that any amount of hectoring or shaming, or proclamations from the public-health or Democratic communities, will make much of a difference for this group. \u201cI\u2019ve lost all faith in the media and public-health officials,\u201dsaid Myles Pindus, a 24-year-old in Brooklyn, who told me he is skeptical of the mRNA vaccines and is interested in the Johnson & Johnson shot. \u201cIt might sound crazy, but I\u2019d rather go to Twitter and check out a few people I trust than take guidance from the CDC, or WHO, or Fauci,\u201d Baca, the Colorado truck driver, told me. Other no-vaxxers offered similar appraisals of various Democrats and liberals, but they were typically less printable.<\/p>\n From my conversations, I see three ways to persuade no-vaxxers: make it more convenient to get a shot; make it less convenient to not get a shot; or encourage them to think more socially.<\/p>\n 1.<\/strong>\u00a0Try something like \u201cDoorDash for vaccines.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n To get people to participate in an activity they don\u2019t really care about, you make it as easy and tantalizing as possible. Some people have already suggested offering money, free food, or even lottery tickets in exchange for vaccination. But one source who asked to remain anonymous suggested that state health departments should offer something like DoorDash for vaccines.<\/p>\n With any new technology, the early adopters are the ones most willing to tolerate glitches and a bad experience. That\u2019s fine when supply is limited, but as you try to get to mass market, you need to perfect the product and experience.<\/p>\n All of which to say: Cities should start to roll out a vaccine in-home service, which people can book on short notice. Providers come to you, and maybe bring you some sort of gift along with the vaccine. Cities should have enough capacity and staff to do that at this point, and a service such as this would be key to getting young people in particular to take it.<\/p>\n 2.<\/strong>\u00a0Make it suck more to not be vaccinated.<\/strong><\/p>\n Governments and companies may find that soft bribery is the best way to get the no-vaxxers to the clinics. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, for example,\u00a0has linked<\/a>\u00a0her state reopening policies to progress in shots, letting restaurants and bars increase their occupancy once 60 percent of the state has been vaccinated, and promising to lift mask orders when 70 percent of Michiganders have received both doses.<\/p>\n Read: America is now in the hands of the vaccine-hesitant<\/a><\/p>\n Millions of people want to go to sporting events, attend concerts, or travel internationally. If those who cannot prove that they\u2019ve been vaccinated are denied service, I expect that some will sign up for shots purely as a means of reengaging in their favorite activities. \u201cIf all or most countries instituted vaccine passports, that might change [my mind],\u201d Younes, the attorney, told me.<\/p>\n But the cultural backlash against domestic restrictions could be prodigious. If blue-state governors and sports stadiums deny economic activities to the unvaccinated while red-state stadiums allow anybody to sit at a bar or in the bleachers, it will deepen the culture-war tensions between scolding liberals and accommodating conservatives in a way that might not be good for Democrats politically, even if they have the upper hand in the public-health argument.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In April, the CDC\u00a0reported<\/a>\u00a0that an unvaccinated health-care worker set off an outbreak in a mostly vaccinated Kentucky nursing home. Several vaccinated seniors got sick and one vaccinated resident died.*<\/a><\/a>\u00a0To be absolutely clear: The vaccines worked to protect most residents. But no vaccine is perfect, and\u00a0the COVID-19 vaccines won\u2019t stop all infections<\/a>, especially for some people with weak immune systems.<\/p>\n I made this case to several no-vaxxers: Your grandparents, elderly neighbors, and immunocompromised friends will be safer if you\u2019re vaccinated, even if you\u2019ve already been infected. I played with the \u201cCOVID is no worse than driving\u201d metaphor that many of them offered. I agree that driving is acceptably safe for most people, I said. But imagine, I added, if you could have a\u00a0forward collision warning system<\/a>\u00a0installed in your car for free? An already-pretty-safe activity would become an even safer activity; and what\u2019s more, you\u2019d be protecting other people on the road at minimal cost to yourself.<\/p>\n I can\u2019t tell you this argument got a lot of people to drop the phone, sprint to a vaccine clinic, and sign up for a Fauci tattoo on their arm. The truth is that I\u2019m not sure that I changed anybody\u2019s mind. But I can honestly say that this argument gave several no-vaxxers a bit of pause. They responded by talking about chains of transmission throughout the community, rather than focusing on their own immune system. Several of them asked to see evidence of my position so that they could examine it for themselves.<\/p>\n The United States suffers from a deficit of imagining the lives of other people. This is true of my side: Vaccinated liberals don\u2019t take much time to calmly hear out the logic of those refusing the shots. But it\u2019s also true of the no-vaxxers, who might reconsider their view if they grasped the far-ranging consequences of their private vaccination decisions. Instead of shaming and hectoring, our focus should be on broadening their circle of care:\u00a0Your cells might be good enough to protect you, but the shots are better to protect Grandpa.<\/em><\/p>\n *<\/a><\/a>This article previously misstated that two vaccinated seniors died in a Kentucky nursing home. In fact, only one vaccinated person died.<\/small><\/em><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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