Cascading Opinions on the COVID-19 Vaccine
The ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 has continued to persist, especially in the US, even with measures for lockdowns and social distancing in effect. While there is no exact culprit to blame for this, many of these prevention methods have failed simply because it is unrealistic for many people to stop their daily activities, for example working or exercising due to their financial state or health. Although it is still very important to be practicing social distancing or wearing a mask, it is becoming quite apparent that these methods will not stop the spread of COVID anytime soon. One option to consider would be to stop the infection through herd immunity. As this may sound like a good idea, it is not optimal due to the size of the US population and the extraordinary amount of deaths that it would produce. The most promising option to date is a vaccine, although even this has its challenges.
Throughout the end of our course we determined the amount of the population necessary to become immune to the virus (through a vaccine or given they already recovered from the specific strain) in order to eventually stop the spread of COVID. This was done through the calculation of R-naught multiplied by the amount of people susceptible (1-number immune), meaning that ‘I’ must be greater than 1-1/(R-naught). This calculation shows that at least 60% of the population must be immune for the disease to eventually die out. In the linked article they used a very similar method, although much more in depth. The equation used was B x S x Is x (B x 0.5) x S x Ia, with B being R-naught/duration of infection, S and I being susceptible and infected. Through this equation they were able to determine what percentage of the population must receive the vaccine, essentially replicating herd immunity at worst, based on the vaccine’s efficacy. The outcome of this study provided extremely interesting results, essentially they found that with a vaccine efficacy of 80% it would still be essential for 75% of the population to receive the vaccine in order to eliminate the possibility of an epidemic. According to an article published by the New England Journal of Medicine, current average efficacy percentages are surpassing 90%, which would then need over 60% of the population to receive the vaccine.
While it is not necessary for the entire population to receive the vaccine, convincing over 60% to take it as soon as possible is no trivial task. The Pew Research Center did a study on the average americans response to the rapidly approaching vaccine, in which they found some intimidating results.
Looking at the chart above, it is evident that a clear majority of the public is skeptical because of the speed at which it is being developed, and health concerns associated with that. Although this does not inspire much confidence in terms of realistically avoiding an epidemic, one current event may be able to change the opinions of the public. The most efficient way to convince the public of the safety of this vaccine would be to create a cascading effect of opinions. Especially during the current pandemic, people are confined to a relatively small cluster of people and tend to be persuaded by each other easily due to the strong ties associated with their relationships. In order for one person in the cluster to change their opinion, thereby potentially changing the opinion of the group, they must be convinced by someone trustworthy outside the cluster. According to CNN, former presidents Obama, Clinton, and Bush have all agreed to take the vaccine in an attempt to prove its safety to the public. Hopefully this will cause a cascade of opinions to change, pushing over 60% of the population to get the vaccine and potentially wearing down the virus.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/02/politics/obama-vaccine/index.html
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2034577
https://www.ajpmonline.org/article/S0749-3797(20)30284-1/pdf