According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized Pfizer to vaccinate in the United States as early as or on the 11th. However, a poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showed that about a quarter of the respondents were not sure whether to get a coronavirus vaccine because of concerns about its safety, and another quarter made it clear that they would not be vaccinated.
The vaccine has finally arrived. Why are many Americans deterred?
With the epidemic raging, the limited supply of vaccines can be said to be a drop in the bucket. A report by The Wall Street Journal on the 9th revealed that even if the Pfizer vaccine is approved, the initial coverage of less than 1% of the total population of the United States, and “priority is given to medical staff, the elderly, teachers, or ethnic minorities? Many questions have not been answered.” USA Today commented that the current way the U.S. government gives in proportion to the adult population will exacerbate racial inequality: as a high-risk group of infection, the distribution of people of color in each state is not even.
However, at a time when more than 15.38 million people have been diagnosed in the United States, where is it not “high risk”?
At the same time, the safety of vaccines has been repeatedly questioned. According to a report by Sky News on the 9th, two health workers developed allergic reactions after being vaccinated against Pfizer. Recently, the U.S. FDA confirmed that four volunteers in the third phase of Pfizer vaccine had Bell’s palsy, or “face paralysis”.
Many uncertainties led to the rampant of false news and panic for a while. According to USA Today on the 9th, fake news about vaccines is currently soaring in the United States, and several representative rumors such as “the vaccine has a microchip implanted by Bill Gates” are spreading to mainstream society in the United States through social media. “A lot of people aren’t sure what to believe, and I’m one of them,” a former Marine told the Associated Press.
At present, the epidemic in the United States is “breaking records” almost every day, and the bleak prospects of “dark winter days” are “shocking”. According to ABC data, the number of deaths increased in the seven days from December 1 to 7, which is equivalent to three Americans die of COVID-19 every two minutes. Wayne Gupta, a professor at the Institute of Health Metrics and Assessment at the University of Washington, said on the 7th that every American should be prepared for “falling into disaster” in the next two months.
“I think the future [Christmas and New Year’s holidays] may be a bigger challenge than Thanksgiving,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told CNN.
The overstretched vaccine supply, the continuous pulling of the diagnosis curve, the unknown and test, the breach of trust and rumors… The anti-epidemic chaos is frequent, and the people are worried.
