Public Skepticism Over COVID Shots Fuels Growing Vaccine Hesitancy

A study conducted by the University of Portsmouth in the United Kingdom found that public confidence in vaccines has declined significantly since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, published in the medical journal Vaccine in October 2022 surveyed a total of 1,009 individuals—739 in 2019 and 270 in 2022.^{1 2 3 4 5}

Participants in the study were asked if they believed vaccines are safe, if they thought vaccines should be compulsory, if they believed that personally getting vaccinated would benefit the wellbeing of others, and if they thought vaccines are necessary for good health and wellbeing.^{3 4}

The study found that one in four participants reported decreased confidence in vaccines since 2020, and that this occurred regardless of age, gender, religion, level of education and ethnic background. In both groups surveyed, individuals who held religious beliefs were much more hesitant to get vaccinated than those who said they were atheist or agnostic, while African-Americans and Asian-Americans were more hesitant than those who identified as Caucasian. There was no variation in vaccine hesitancy associated with gender.^{2 3 4 5}

Confidence in Vaccines Another Victim of COVID

“Our results suggest a trend that [vaccine hesitancy] may be increasing,” said Alessandro Siani, PhD, associate head of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Portsmouth and leader of the study.¹

The loss in confidence in vaccines is believed to have been influenced by public attitudes toward the COVID-19 shots and the overall COVID pandemic and government policies in response to it. “[T]he study is consistent with other observations suggesting that vaccine confidence may be yet another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Dr. Siani said.^{3 5}

He added:

While vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon, COVID-19 vaccines have been met with particular hostility… This isn’t just among conspiracy theorists though, but also those who don’t consider themselves ‘anti-vaxxers’ and had supported other vaccination campaigns in the past.^{3 5}

The conclusions of the study by Portsmouth University are consistent with a “web-based” survey of 2,200 people conducted by March 2021 by the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Vaccine Science Fellows. In that survey, 20.8 percent of respondents stated that they had grown less confident in vaccines during the  COVID pandemic.^{6 7}

The findings of both studies are also consistent with observations that have been made by health care providers and public health practitioners over the past year. In January 2022, CNBC published an article titled “Covid vaccine skepticism may be fueling ‘worrisome’ rise in wider anti-vax sentiment, doctors say.” The article quoted Dr. Liam Smeeth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who said he was concerned that vaccine hesitancy around COVID was “creeping into” feelings about other vaccines.⁷

The study by Portsmouth University did not attempt to explain the reasons for the “particular hostility” toward the COVID shots, although other studies, including one published in the journal Nature on Apr. 26, 2022, have attributed hesitancy and refusal to get these shots to “misinformation” published on social media.⁸

Vaccine Hesitancy Studies Focus on Social Media Misinformation

Surprisingly, studies (like the one in Nature), which blame the growth in vaccine hesitancy in the United States and countries around the world on misinformation published on social media, demonstrate little or no interest in considering that people may have legitimate concerns about the safety and effectiveness of the COVID shots and that this unease might logically carry over to vaccines in general.

It’s as if those researchers, who are attributing vaccine hesitancy merely to information they classify as “misinformation” on social media, have not bothered to keep up with the countless reports of severe adverse reactions and deaths directly linked to COVID shots, especially injuries and deaths that occur shortly after people receive the shots. They don’t seem to understand that a lot of people now know that the shots do not prevent infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its spread. There are many other “facts” related to COVID and the shots that were once believed to be the truth by many doctors and scientists – and the public – but have been proven to be anything but the truth.^{9 10 11 12 13}

But the bad-info-on-social media theory for explaining the growing phenomenon of vaccine hesitancy is so easy and so seductive in its simplicity that it is hard to let go of, particularly if accepting the possibility that the vaccine hesitant may have perfectly legitimate, logical  reasons for their hesitancy is the alternative explanation

Pfizer Awards $100,000 Grant to Research Vaccine Hesitancy

Last week, Pfizer awarded Ruobing Li, an assistant professor of mass communication at the School of Communication and Journalism at Stony Brook University in New York, a $100,000 grant to research COVID vaccine hesitancy. Last year, Li won a $25,000 grant from the university to “explore the intersection between vaccine hesitancy and media exposure.”^{14 15}

The Pfizer grant will allow Li to conduct a “meta-analysis, a cumulative study of previous research done to draw conclusions from one area of ​​research, about the various factors that cause vaccine hesitancy across a wide range of demographics, socio-economic, educational and behavioral levels.”¹⁴

In other words, Li is investigating why so many people are so gullible, so susceptible to all that misinformation on social media. It looks like “vaccine hesitancy” research has become a cottage industry, with professors at major universities still unable to grasp (or accept) the obvious reasons why many more people are refusing to just listen to the “experts,” do as they’re told, and roll up their sleeves.

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