COVID-19 IN POLITICS

Vaccination trends along political divide

39.9%

52.8%

The Red and Blue gap in COVID-19 vaccination rates has continued to grow since the vaccine was made available. On Sept. 13, counties that voted for former President Donald Trump had vaccination rates lower than counties that voted for Joe Biden. Source: Kaiser Family Foundation

Vaccine mistrust higher among conservative students, faculty

By Lindsey Golden and Sidney Hinz

Historically, most vaccines have not been politicized like the COVID-19 vaccine, said a member of the Lancet Commission on vaccine refusal and acceptance in the United States. Republicans are significantly less likely to get vaccinated than Democrats.

Timothy Callaghan, Ph.D., said research for the Lancet Commission includes a published paper that examines the politicized COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. He is a part of the commission and an assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in A&M’s School of Public Health.

“Even before the pandemic, levels of trust in science and scientists for the past several years [has been] lower among conservatives than it has been among liberals,” said Callaghan.

Political leaders across the country downplaying the severity of the virus is another reason why many conservatives are hesitant to get the vaccine or wear a mask, Callaghan said.

“To the extent that some political leaders are downplaying the severity of the virus, it could lead you to being less likely to see the virus as something that serious and something you need to be taking mitigation measures against now,” Callaghan said. “Some of the national conservative media figures ... have placed less emphasis [on criticizing] the conservative side as opposed to the liberal side, and people tend to take their cues from political elites.”

There are five reasons why there has been more hesitancy with the COVID vaccine in comparison to others, Callaghan said.

“The first is that this was a very unusual vaccine development process, and in most contexts, the development of a vaccine is something that takes place over a long period of time, sort of in isolation and quite without widespread media attention,” Callaghan said. “COVID-19 was the opposite of that.

“Every single thing that happened in the vaccine development process was highlighted. There’s tons of media attention to it. We also saw … a process that can take up to a decade or longer play out over the course of about a year.”

The “tugging poll” is another reason for vaccine hesitancy, Callaghan said.

Graphic by Ryan Faulkner

“On the one hand, politicians certainly care about the health of the public, but they also care about the economy,” Callaghan said. “There’s sort of a real tug-and-pull between the two of them at various times. That doubt tends to downplay the vaccine side to play up the need to get the economy back to normal.”

Investing and research also played important roles, Callaghan said.

“You know we invest large amounts of money in various issues,” Callaghan said. “For example, cancer, heart disease and a variety of other things, the amount of research money being spent on vaccine hesitancy, is a lot less than that.”

“And considering how many Americans are dying because of vaccine hesitancy, that’s problematic. In particular, there’s very little research that’s being done to focus on politicized vaccines.”

Misinformation — which has caused uproar throughout the pandemic — is the fourth factor Callaghan identified. It’s up to both the government and the private sector to weed out misinformation, Callaghan said, and to make sure when people search for information, what they get is accurate.

“We need to do more to stop misinformation,” Callaghan said. “One of the reasons many people are vaccine-hesitant is because they come across [false] information. That leads them to be not trusting the vaccines, for one reason or another. And we argue that policymakers and various professional organizations need to do more to stop misinformation.”

Magnifying misinformation on a national level has sparked distrust around both the virus and the vaccine, Callaghan said.

“We’ve seen a large number of conservative media outlets amplifying information about COVID-19 [which is] actually misinformation,” Callaghan said. These misinformation sources must be recognized to stop misinformation spread, he said.

The pandemic has divided the nation and caused tragedies across the globe. People who take the steps to get vaccinated are not only protecting themselves, Callaghan said, but also those around them.

“The fact is if you are vaccinated, you are significantly less likely to be hospitalized and significantly less likely to die,” Callaghan said.