Vaccine Refusal Linked to Mistrust in Health Authorities; 2% of Kids and 7% of Adults Have Gotten the New COVID Shots, US Data Show, and other C-Virus related stories
Vaccine refusal linked to mistrust in health authorities:
Refusal of COVID-19 vaccines has been a feature of the pandemic since the vaccines were first made available in late winter 2020 and early 2021.
In a new study in JAMA Network Open, authors review 28,000 interviews on vaccine uptake and hesitancy conducted in Hong Kong and Singapore from February 2020 through January 2022 to determine what was driving vaccine refusal.
Until the Omicron wave in late 2021 and early 2022, Hong Kong had one of the lowest COVID-19 prevalence rates across the globe. But with Omicron, death tolls in Hong Kong soared to 39.3 million people per day, the highest death toll in the world.
While Hong Kong’s cumulative COVID-19 deaths per capita remain lower than the UK and US, it has far exceeded high-income economies in Asia-Pacific.
“While Hong Kong’s cumulative COVID-19 deaths per capita remain lower than the UK and US, it has far exceeded high-income economies in Asia-Pacific,” the authors said. This was likely linked to low vaccine uptake: 82.4% of adults in Hong Kong aged 80 years and older were unvaccinated or had received only one dose during the Omicron BA.2 variant phase of the pandemic, compared to just 9.0% of adults in in Singapore
The authors of the present study used 20 waves of questionnaires and data to understand the vaccine refusal and compared results to those seen in Singapore, which had one of the highest rates of vaccine uptake in Asia. —>READ MORE HERE
2% of kids and 7% of adults have gotten the new COVID shots, US data show:
A month after federal officials recommended new versions of COVID-19 vaccines, 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot.
One expert called the rates “abysmal.”
The numbers, presented Thursday at a meeting held by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, come from a national survey of thousands of Americans, conducted two weeks ago.
The data also indicated that nearly 40% of adults said they probably or definitely will not get the shot. A similar percentage of parents said they did not plan to vaccinate their children.
In the late summer, government health officials made the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign more like the annual flu campaign.
Officials approved updated shots that have a single target, an omicron descendant named XBB.1.5. They replaced vaccines that targeted the original coronavirus strain and a much earlier omicron version. Last month, the CDC recommended the new shots for everyone 6 months and older.
The government also transitioned to a commercialized system that relied on the health-care industry — not the government — to handle the distribution of the shots. Many people who immediately went for shots said pharmacies or doctors didn’t have them. —>READ MORE HERE
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