Warning: this text is a trigger for those who are anxious to protect themselves against the worst pandemic in a century.
While in Brazil there is a lack of vaccine, but no desire to be vaccinated, there are corners of the globe where this equation is reversed. Here, according to a Datafolha survey, one in ten people say they would refuse a Covid vaccine, but in the United States and some European countries, only needles are left looking for an arm. Joe Biden, for example, has a vaccine in its own right, to the point of giving 80 million doses to other nations. At home, however, he fears for the success of his own vaccination campaign.
Research institutes have detected reluctance in the population. A survey carried out at the end of March, in partnership with Marist and NPR (the American public radio), showed that one in four citizens of Biden would refuse a vaccine, regardless of the laboratory. There was still a 5% share of undecided.
The risk, the scientists point out, is that such resistance compromises the immunity of the herd, in which case the virus can no longer circulate freely in a society. Republican men who live in rural areas are reluctantly pulling the wing, but all demographic groups have shown considerable rejection. There is strong support for speeches like that of comedian Joe Rogan, who owns a popular podcast. “I think you should get the vaccine if you’re vulnerable. But if you’re 21 and ask me, ‘should I get the vaccine?’, I’ll say ‘no’, ”he said of his schedule last month.
Anthony Fauci, director of the American Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the nation’s highest health authority, countered the mistake. “If you only want to worry about yourself and not about society, that’s fine. But if you say to yourself, “Even though I am infected, I can harm someone else, even if I have no symptoms.” . ‘”
Dislike also captures a fraction of the left. New York photographer Jenny Tsai, 46, says three friends have never vaccinated their children and say they prefer to rely on the natural support of the immune system. Other acquaintances, she says, believe that the Covid vaccines are very new and, therefore, want to see if they are really effective or if they have any side effects. “None of them supported Donald, okay?”
She is referring to former US President Donald Trump, who, like Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro, has spurred negative positions in the pandemic – although today oddly he claims the title of ‘father of the vaccine’.
The group of skeptics justifies this by citing reasons such as: 1) concern about side effects, mentioned by 52%; 2) plan to wait and see if the vaccine is safe (42%); 3) distrust of the immunizer (37.5%) and the government (30%); 4) the belief that they do not need this protection to cope with the virus (25%).
In other words, we’re not talking about the “anti-ax” movements that still refuse all vaccines, conjuring up conspiracy theories that support nonsense such as saying that a drug causes autism in children. For the most part, the reluctance is more linked to this particular wave of immunizers, produced in record time by the scientific community.
In Europe, he has not helped shuttle regulatory agencies on the safety of the vaccine developed by Oxford / AstraZeneca. It has been associated with rare but severe clots. Even before vaccination began, a good portion of Europeans were at risk, according to the Recover Europe project, which compiled data from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control for seven countries (France, Germany, Belgium, Italy , Spain), Sweden and Ukraine).
“If a scientific study found an effective and safe vaccine against Covid-19, and if it was free for everyone in your country, would you take it?” To this question, only 44% of French people, the most skeptical country on the list, answered yes. The rest were divided into “no” (28%) and “don’t know / prefer not to say” (28%).
The greatest receptivity, 66%, came from Italy, one of the countries that suffered the most from the impacts of the pandemic – Brazil has just exceeded it in number of victims of the disease considering the proportion of deaths for 100 thousand inhabitants: 208 people here, and 206 in the European nation.
In March, French Prime Minister Jean Castex said only one in three healthcare professionals in the country had been vaccinated, even after a large offer for the category. Then he appealed to them to accept the bite. “This is not normal and it compromises our ability to fight the virus effectively.”
Correspondent for the English newspaper The Guardian in France, Kim Willsher shared in an article a joke circulating on the networks: “How can a Frenchman get vaccinated against Covid-19? Say he can’t get it ”.
It is also not a question of trusting the immunizer, explains Parisian artist Pauline Clément, 28, who simply does not see the urgency of offering her arm. “I am young, I run every day, I eat healthy. If I catch this virus, my body is good, ”she says, referring to a story of an“ athlete ”that doesn’t prevent anyone from contracting more severe forms of the disease, other than the possibility of being one. vector.
The national reach of vaccination campaigns, via SUS, makes Brazilians more likely to roll up their sleeves for needles, says Dayane Machado, a doctoral student at Unicamp who studies anti-vaccine movements. “Vaccines are in the imagination of the population as a right, as a positive technology and part of our routine.” In the United States, the lack of a universal public health system makes Americans more suspicious of vaccination, according to Machado.
“Especially in communities where inequalities are very marked, such as Latin. In a context where access to health is associated with the risk of extreme debt, it is very difficult to convince part of the population that the government do something for free to benefit from it. “
Not for nothing, American companies are even offering cash, free time, and beer to anyone who agrees to get their fix. A toast.