- The nation’s leading infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony
Fauci , he said he’s worriedhealthcare workers will be “undecided” to get thecoronavirus vaccine . - If healthcare workers hesitate, he said in an interview with the Daily Beast, people who work outside of that industry will waver too.
- Sixty percent of the population said they would definitely or probably take a
coronavirus vaccine in a recent Pew Research survey. - But 40% of those surveyed said otherwise, as concerns and skepticism around the vaccine are also increasing within anti-vaccination groups.
As a coronavirus vaccine begins to roll out, Dr. Anthony Fauci said he is concerned that healthcare workers are refusing to get vaccinated and discouraging others from doing so as well.
“My biggest biggest fear is that a substantial proportion of people hesitate to get vaccinated,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with the Daily Beast.
“I think there are going to be a lot of people who don’t want to get vaccinated right away,” he said, noting concerns that those fighting the disease on the front lines may choose not to get the vaccine. “We have to make sure we give health workers the proper information,” Fauci said. “What’s the reason you’re hesitating? Do you think it was too fast? It was certainly the fastest we got the vaccine approved. But the speed is related to the extraordinary scientific advances in vaccine platform technology that allowed us to doing things in months that would have taken years before. ”
“If you give them that information and explain it clearly, then I think they will agree to get vaccinated. If not, I think we are going to have a little problem.
Over the weekend, Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine left the Michigan-based pharmaceutical company’s manufacturing facility. Trucks came out with doses ready for distribution to hospitals and clinics across the country.
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The Food and Drug Administration granted emergency approval for Pfizer’s vaccine on Friday. The company expects to distribute 50 million doses worldwide by the end of the year, according to a statement. By the end of next year, 1.3 billion doses will have been administered.
If healthcare workers choose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine, swaths of people who are not first-line responders will also have doubts, Fauci said, which could mean that large populations of people in the United States will not be vaccinated against. the virus. . As Business Insider’s Canela Lopez previously reported, more than half of the New York City Fire Department said they will reject the first round of the vaccine. And the FDNY announced that it will not make the COVID-19 vaccine mandatory for its employees.
A survey conducted in the last two weeks of November found that 60% of those surveyed said they would definitely or likely receive a coronavirus vaccine. That figure is higher than 51% of people who said the same in September.
Still, 40% of people remain unsure or committed to not getting one, according to the Pew Research survey. Among them are the anti-vaccine groups that are most against receiving it.
“But once … tens of millions of people are vaccinated, it seems like it’s working and it’s safe, so I think we’ll win over a large proportion of the rest of the population, who might have some doubts about getting vaccinated.” ,” he said.
“If we can vaccinate a very high percentage of the United States population with what is clearly a highly effective group of vaccines, we could have a significant positive impact in reversing the dynamics of this outbreak,” Fauci said, adding that a great a part of the general population will be able to receive a vaccine “in April, May and June”.
Other vaccines are also in the final stages, and Moderna is pending review by the FDA. Moderna says its vaccine has a 94.5% effectiveness rate in preventing COVID-19.