Fear Of Side Effects Government Mistrust Among Reasons For Vaccine Hesitancy
Health authorities fear a wane in demand for COVID-19 vaccines could jeopardize Hawaiis ability to achieve mass immunity needed to stamp out the disease.
Maui resident Kanani Puou, 34, knows the damage COVID-19 can do. Her brother had to stay home from work for two months when he fell ill after catching the coronavirus.
But Puou, a University of Hawaii Maui student, said she has no plans to take the vaccine any time soon. As a diabetic cancer survivor, Puou is wary of having an adverse reaction.
I feel that it hasnt been fully tested yet, she said. I already have underlying health conditions so I dont know how its going to affect me.
Approximately 75% of the 1,500 respondents of the latest Civil Beat/Hawaii News Now poll indicated they already got the vaccine. Puou was among the 12% of respondents who said they would not do so. Another 5% wanted to wait, and 4% said they werent sure about getting vaccinated for COVID-19.
Civil Beat followed up with some of those who indicated in the survey theyd be willing to share their thoughts in interviews.
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Among their many concerns was the speed at which the vaccines were developed and the potential for an adverse reaction. Their hesitancy is fueled further by mistrust in government officials and the pharmaceutical companies that manufactured the vaccines.
To Smith, vaccines are still experimental and lack a track record.
Why Are Some People Afraid To Get Vaccinated
THIS is not a medical or scientific article but rather a light feature that peeks into the decisions of some people who choose not to get vaccinated against Covid-19.
According to an article published on Healthline, the idea of vaccination opposition is not a new thing. When the smallpox vaccine was introduced in the 1800s, it was criticized based on sanitary, religious and political reasons.
Unfortunately, this mindset of not vaccinating ones self or their children does not only affect themselves but their community. If there are a number of unvaccinated people against an infectious disease, there is a likelihood of a reemergence of that particular disease in that area.
The case of polio
A joint press release by the World Health Organization on June 11, 2021 stated how the Philippines Department of Health announced a polio outbreak on Sept. 19, 2019, after 19 years of being polio-free.
After a comprehensive outbreak response which included intensified immunization and surveillance activities, the DOH was able to officially conclude its successful response on June 3.
WHO and Unicef Philippines on behalf of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative commend the Department of Health , government agencies, partners and civil society efforts that have ended the polio outbreak in the Philippines.
For context, polio is a highly infectious, crippling and sometimes fatal disease that can be avoided with a vaccine, stated WHO in the article.
Fact vs fiction
Tips For Surviving Shots
Do shots make you nervous? You’re not alone. Lots of people dread them because they have a very real fear of needles. So next time your doc asks you to roll up your sleeve, try these tips:
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Weighing Public Good Over Individual Interest
While communication is one lever to address vaccination coverage, public policy is another. Lately, more and more states and countries are pursuing public health policies that aim to increase vaccination rates. Amid measles outbreaks, Italy earlier this year declared that vaccines are mandatory for children as a condition of school registration, and Germany announced it would penalize parents with fines for not vaccinating children. Australias No Jab, No Pay bill mandates that only parents of immunized children can receive credits such as the Child Care Benefit, the Child Care Rebate and the Family Tax Benefit. In the U.S., states like California, Vermont and Washington have recently tightened requirements for using the personal belief exemption, calling for medical exemptions from a doctor for students to skip vaccinations.
Focus On The Benefits
For some people, the nervous anticipation of the shot is nearly as bad as the pinch itself.
But in the case of the Covid-19 vaccine, theres a lot to look forward to if the vaccine succeeds in allowing a return to normalcy. Dr. Rajapakse said that when she got her first dose, my personal feeling was one of optimism and excitement rather than feeling nervous about it.
Keeping that at the front of your mind can make this a little less of a nervous experience for you, she said.
The media can do its part by showing fewer images of people looking uncomfortable while a needle goes into their skin, which can aggravate feelings of anxiety, Dr. Rajapakse said.
A good countermeasure is all of the positive photos emerging on social media of people holding their vaccination cards, she said. The more selfies, stickers and grateful posts people see, the more likely they are to associate the vaccine with positive feelings, she said.
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Many Americans Worry More About The Vaccines Side Effects Than About Covid
Only about 50 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus a number that barely changed at all in July. As rates remain stagnant, many of those 50 percent are grappling with the same question the Biden administration is facing: How do we persuade our fellow citizens to get vaccinated?
That question has roiled federal agencies, state universities and the National Football League in just the past week. On Wednesday, Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley delivered a statement explaining that he hadnt gotten vaccinated in part because he feels that information is being withheld from players and we dont know enough about the vaccines.
Beasley isnt alone. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation Vaccine Monitor, two leading reasons people arent getting vaccinated are the newness of the vaccine and the possibility of unknown side effects. And nearly half of unvaccinated Americans are more worried about vaccine side effects than about contracting covid-19.
Most public health efforts to persuade the vaccine-reluctant have focused on pointing out covid-19s known lethality and other dangers making the case that those outweigh the potential unknowns about the vaccines long-term effects.
My research on how anxiety influences politics suggests that this may be a mistake.
It Is Easy To Dismiss Someone Else’s Decisions If You Don’t Understand The Challenges They Face In Their Day
Then there’s the famous confirmation bias, which can also twist people’s perceptions of the risks of the virus through the ready availability of misinformation from dubious sources that exaggerate the risks of the vaccines. This reliance on misleading resources means that people who score highly on the “calculation” measure of the 5Cs scale the people who actively look for data are often more vaccine hesitant than people who score lower. “If you already think the vaccination could be risky, then you type in ‘is this vaccination dangerous?’, then all you are going find is the information that confirms your prior view,” says Betsch.
Remember that these psychological tendencies are extremely common. Even if you have accepted the vaccine, they have probably influenced your own decision making in many areas of life. To ignore them, and to assume that the vaccine hesitant are somehow wilfully ignorant, is itself a foolish stance.
Health authorities need to produce simple, easy to understand information which shows the vaccine is safe
Finally, we need to be aware of the context of people’s decisions, he says such as the structural racism that might had led certain ethnic groups to have lower overall trust in medical authorities. It is easy to dismiss someone else’s decisions if you don’t understand the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives.
Opening a dialogue
So what can be done?
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Common Side Effects Of Covid
Vaccines help the body develop immunity by activating T and B lymphocytes, which detect the targeted virus and generate antibodies to attack it. Most vaccines are reactogenic in nature and may cause certain side effects which are mild in nature, and resolve on their own in a matter of few days. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , and the World Health Organisation , some of the common side effects of Covid-19 vaccines include fever, headache, chills, body aches, fatigue, and nausea. Side effects may also occur around the injection site, which is generally the upper arm. Swelling, discomfort, redness, an itchy rash, and other minor types of irritation may occur.
What The Polls Say
White evangelical Christians and people who’re under 65 who don’t have health insurance are the most likely to say they “definitely” will not get a COVID-19 vaccine, according to a July poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. How people identify politically also matters, according to the foundation, as Republicans make up 58% of the group who said they definitely won’t get vaccinated. White Americans polled were much more likely to be adamantly against the vaccine than the people of color that were queried, who made up 40% of the group who say they want to “wait and see” before they get the COVID-19 vaccine.
Younger adults age 18 to 29 are also more likely to give a hard “no” to the vaccine, as are adults living in rural areas.
The way the poll splits hairs between people saying they “definitely” won’t get the vaccine and them saying they want to “wait and see” draws the line for the way we might define vaccine resistant versus vaccine hesitant. The way people identify and respond to a questionnaire about why they’re holding out on a shot appears to have a lot to do with their personal or community history and what kind of information and media they’re exposed to. It’s hard to put everyone who doesn’t want the vaccine in a single box, because it’s a diverse community with many different reasons.
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How Small Is A Nanometer
Nano comes from a Greek word meaning dwarf. In essence, it means very small. A nanometer is 70,000 times smaller than the thickness of a human hair. A nanoparticle is anything that is so small that its size ranges from one to a few hundred nanometers. If you cut a block of wood to pieces that are about 0.0000001 centimetres , you will have made nanoparticles.
Nanoparticles can be made out of almost anything, from metals to fat. They can form naturally or inadvertently, and can also be synthesized in research or industrial laboratories.
Perhaps one of the most common nanoparticles today is carbon black, which is used to reinforce our car tires and improve their wear resistance, constituting a US$17.5 billion dollar industry in 2018. We paint the walls in our homes with titanium white nanoparticles. The pills we swallow to treat our headaches or serious illnesses are usually coated with silica or titanium nanoparticles.
More recently, several brands of anti-aging creams have boasted higher efficacy thanks to their active compounds being contained in liposomes the same type of nano-sized fat particles that are at the core of the mRNA COVID vaccines.
Given the broad incidence and wide variety of nanoparticles, there are also some that are not beneficial. For example, the nano-sized soot particles from cigarettes that smokers inhale are very harmful to the lungs.
Read more:The 9 psychological barriers that lead to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and refusal
How To Foil Your Needle Phobia
Its not just kids that have trypanophobia, a fear of needles . 4 Theres no doubt about it, anxiety around needles is a thing: a Gallup study 5 done in 1998 and 2001 found that needles ranked among the top fears of American adults, with about one fifth saying they were afraid of needles or getting an injection.
Needle phobia is very real and understandable, Gallagher says. People dont get needles every day, so they never have the chance to habituate to them. Plus, as any evolutionary biologist will tell you, the idea of a sharp object piercing the skin doesnt seem normal.
Most people with this phobia fear a vasovagal response, where they will suddenly pass out. For people who have never passed out, the fear can still create a very strong sense of discomfort. Other symptoms can include dizziness, fainting, anxiety, insomnia, panic attacks, high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, or feeling emotionally or physically violent.
For those with serious needle phobias, exposure therapies, where patients are shown pictures of needles, working their way up to perhaps giving themselves a needle and finallyover four to nine visitsreceiving an injection, may help.
And, once done, you might want to reward yourself, Gallagher says.
The irony here is that getting the vaccine will help you with your fear of taking public transportation in the long run, Gallagher says. If the fear persists, however, she recommended seeking professional help.
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Uncertainty Is A Big Part Of Why People Hesitate To Get Vaccinated
Most arguments in favor of vaccination have sought to leverage fear the known and very real dangers of contracting covid-19 against anxiety the highly unknowable long-term side effects of the vaccines. That makes a certain amount of sense, especially for those who can tolerate uncertainty such as that around a new vaccine much better than others.
But for those who are still waiting, its probably a different story. And while misinformation clearly increases some Americans reluctance to get vaccinated, correcting such misinformation can only go so far. There will always be someunknowns around any new drug, even one that has now had 185 million trials in the United States alone. And uncertainty is a powerful thing.
Tips To Help Your Child Overcome A Fear Of Shots
If the thought of getting a shot brings about fears, tears and sleepless nights for your child, you’re not alone. Many children fear getting shots, but protecting them from dangerous diseases through vaccination is worth the challenge. The good news is that there are things you can do to help your child cope.
Our child life specialists have created a list of tried-and-true tips to help parents calm children who may be facing a fear of shots, immunizations or a procedure.
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Making The Decision To Get The Coronavirus Vaccine
When it comes to making medical choices, it is up to each of us to decide whats in our best interest. If mental health issues prevent you from getting the vaccine, you might want to talk to a therapist. In some cases, such as for health care workers or essential workers, a vaccine may be required as part of the job, but in other cases, taking a breather to get some therapy or to take time to read more on the science of the vaccine may reduce your hesitancy.
A Spring 2020 study on anxiety during the pandemic found that about 62% of the respondents were anxious about the possibility of family and loved ones getting coronavirus. If youre having difficulty with the thought of receiving the vaccine, you might consider that the vaccine is designed not only to protect you from COVID-19 but through herd immunity, your loved ones as well.
It Is True That There Are Side Effects Of The Covid
Written by Arushi Bidhuri | Updated : July 10, 2021 1:16 PM IST
We finally have vaccines to combat the microscopic villain, Covid-19 that upended our lives in inexplicable ways. With India’s devastating virus surge easing in the cities, the deadly pandemic is still ravaging some parts of the country. The best way to keep everyone safe from the deadly coronavirus is getting maximum people vaccinated against the virus. Although the vaccines are believed to be safe and effective, people are still sceptical about whether they should get jabbed or not. The major reason why people are skipping their chance to get a dose is because of the side effects and myths surrounding the Covid vaccines. Here’s why you should not fear the side effects.
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