Originally Posted by
Dan Druff
Honestly Biden fucked up the vaccine messaging badly.
In order to push through their massive spending bills, they had to make COVID look like a continued crisis, and thus had to put forth the messaging that we'd be masking and distancing for a very long time. This left a lot of people on the fence asking themselves, "Why bother?" regarding getting it.
After the extreme pressure to change course, the CDC did the about-face in mid-May regarding their masking recommendations, and all of a sudden there was renewed interest in getting the vaccine.
Of course, the right had plenty of a hand in vaccine hesitancy, but Biden did the situation no favors.
The vaccine hesitancy comes from five places:
1) Young people who figure they don't need it
2) Minorities who are distrusting of it
3) Right wingers who are distrusting of it
4) On-the-fence people convinced by Democrats/media that not much changes for you if you get it, so why bother?
5) People misled by Dems/media into believing that masking and distancing keeps you safe, so you can just do that in place of the vaccine
Anecdotally, I know people in all five groups.
Group #5 is arguably the most tilting, because these are people who want to be responsible, but have been misled by the media for a year that masking/distancing is the gold standard of safety, and they really believe that they can stay safe while waiting awhile to see if the vaccine is safe. "I am still scared of the vaccine, but I wear a mask, sanitize my hands, and keep 6 feet away when I go out, so I'm not going to catch COVID!"
