"State of residence" was a predictor in their linear model. A person's state (and its government) will probably affect the outcome variable to some extend, so it's not really surprising that it might be retained as a significant term. However, I find it hard to believe it's so important. I wonder if that predictor is simply confounded with some unobserved variable relating to methods of surveying that differed by state.
Even just looking at counties I'm familiar with it doesn't pass the sniff test.
You've got the "hicks live here" county that's the same color as the "yuppies buy houses in these suburbs" county that's the same color as the "not much English gets spoken here" county and so on. And yet it's all different than the adjacent counties that happen to be across state lines that have similar demographics.
Methodology here.
https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-1...
There are also effects here around metro areas.
often, population density affects culture/attitudes toward these sorts of things. as with many such maps, adding an additional analysis layer denoting population density would yield interesting results. (though if you intuitively know the population densities of various "outlier" states, and you know where major cities are in the lesser-populated states, you can already intuitively draw some correlations yourself.)
"My body, my choice" ain't just a political slogan; it makes sense. I'm glad these vaccines are available, but I had this crud early and I'll pass on the vaccine thx.
What's going on?
Compare that to Texas, where shots are going begging at freaking Walmart. It's extremely infuriating. MA's vaccination rate is solely limited by available doses and meanwhile vaccines are expiring unused on the shelf in other states. We could have hit herd immunity by now if we were given the chance.
via https://data.cdc.gov/stories/s/Vaccine-Hesitancy-for-COVID-1...
Not really surprised at the areas that are darkest, but still feel worried that lots of areas near 20%. Specifically the levels of non-Hispanic Black hesitancy in the South is really rough.
Hopefully over time this improves especially as private enterprises put some pressure on getting vaccinated
I really hope I don't lose my job because I don't want to take an experimental, unapproved vaccine for a disease that hospitalizes less than 5% of people across all age groups when I work from home, am a healthy weight, and am under forty.
The risk for me is, in fact, comparable to the flu, and the vaccine has similar drawbacks to the flu vaccine.
Also are you surprised that Black people in the South don't want this experimental vaccine after the Tuskegee Experiment? Combine that with the awful side effects documented on Reddit in r/covidvaccinated and the refusal of the drug company lawyers to accept liability if something is wrong, the very people pushing the vaccine still wearing two masks, the profit incentive of a new annual vaccine, and new reports of menstrual "changes" caused by the vaccines that are rolling in and you know what? I'll take my chances with COVID's death rate, since it's only killed 14000 Americans under forty.
This comment will probably get removed but I'm done buying into #BlueAnon conspiracy theories.
In fact, the risk for you is that you infect someone you care about and they end up hospitalized or dead. That is a very real risk that has played out countless times during this pandemic and has cost thousands and thousands of lives.
In theory the government is supposed to provide a settlement under the countermeasure version of the national vaccine injury compensation fund. I say in theory because the system doesn't work as well as it's marketed to (based on personal experience).
Also, I'm not sure why you are being downvoted. Maybe just an unpopular opinion or the inflammatory remark? I'm of a similar opinion. I don't go anywhere except the food store, have an N95 mask (owned prior to the pandemic), work from home, under 35 with no comorbidities, only elderly I have contact with are family who have already recieved their vaccinations. If they are saying that this might be an annual vaccine and I fit low risk profiles for attributes and actions, then I might as well wait until I'm forced to go back to the office to get it.
> Also are you surprised that Black people in the South don't want this experimental vaccine after the Tuskegee Experiment?
Is a super important and valid point. Historically Black people have had their human rights violated in similar situations. Johnson and Johnson also knowingly targeted Black people with baby powder marketing after they knew it caused cancer. As much as I think it's important to get vaccinated, I wouldn't take the JJ vaccine on principal and personal fear that it's potentially not safe, just based on the company making it (rational or not).
https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/interactive_hesitan...
Every 4 years you also have a lot of people saying "if XXX wins the presidency I'll move to Canada/Mexico". They are all still there.
It's good to ask people but they also change their minds quickly once they have more information.
Having grown up in San Diego, I actually find it somewhat surprising how low the hesitancy is.
Downvoting won’t change this!
[0] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-41-percent-of-republic...
1. Vaccines are still difficult to get in a lot of places. I and my partner only just got appointments for this weekend for our first dose. As long as appointments are required and you have to fight to get a spot at 9am it is going to be difficult to get hesitent people to sign up. I think hesitency will go down dramatically when you can just walk in without an appointment and get it.
2. I really don't understand why Public Health officials keep downplaying the vaccines. They are still talking about everyone masking for months, limited gatherings, no vacations, etc. Why is it always doom and gloom? There is no evidence to support this level of paranoia and the messaging should be the exact opposite. These vaccines are scientific miracles. Get the vaccine and go out and have fun again!
3. The worst thing we can do at this point is to start shaming people for being hesitant. I don't think it has started just yet but I can see it bubbling in certain circles. I was just in a work meeting where we were talking about vaccines and everyone on the call was on board BUT some people only wanted the JandJ one because it used older tech and they didn't want to try the new mRNA ones. This was with a group of all college educated software developers...
There is no evidence at all to support this form of hesitancy and yet there it is. Are they Anti-vax? Kind of, but would it have helped matters to argue that they were wrong and that they were helping kill their neighbors by only wanting one of the vaccines? No, let them have their hesitancy, continue vaccinating, and in 6 months when hundreds of thousands of people have it and nothing bad happens they will quietly go get it done.
We know the vaccines work. Just make them widely available and the proof will be in the results.
Because right now, I say -- "anyone who doesn't want a vaccine, well you live with the consequences and if you can't come to rational understanding that it's your own life being saved, then I shed no tears over your choice".
People who do it out of religious (or Republican) dogma, I'm not sympathetic. People who believe in conspiracy theories, I'm not sympathetic. People who have some "cultural history" skeptical of government vaccines, well you have to learn to get over that, one way or another. I'm not that sympathetic. What's the likelihood that the entire US is being subjected to a racially based cruel experiment?
You don't want life saving vaccine, produced from the effort and focus of an entire nation, to bring us out of the worst crisis in a generation? Well, I don't mind if there are fewer of you.
Aside from the issue where people who are not vaccinated affect those who cannot get vaccinated, it's your own life you're gambling with. Go right ahead.
Change my mind please?
That said, there's a combination of nature and nurture at play, in this case I would suspect mostly nurture, and that's something that most people can't control. So if you want to feel bad for them, feel bad that they didn't have the benefit of the nurturing you had to value the things you do.
It is still difficult to get a vaccine in a lot of places in the country but once we get to summer and there are walk in clinics everywhere my sympathy levels for people who get sick out of vaccine stubbornness is going to be zero.
At some point you need to take personal responsibility for your own health.
You mean 'when'. There's no going back at this point.
When you have a system with
A) massive profit incentive (pfizer and moderna now 'suggesting' annual shots will be neccesary)
B) a populace accepting headlines without verification of what's claimed
C) no accountability if it turns out the vaccine isn't safe
You can't seriously expect that to be accepted. If any individual wants to take those chances with the belief they're doing something good for their community, great, let them take that risk. But the concept of mandating this or even socially expecting your friends and family to take part in this experiment, is absurd, and extremely bewildering to see.
This virus is somewhat more deadly and infectious than the flu or existing cold virus, but looking at the actual numbers of those lost to it, its in fact not much different than the flu. Having lost friends to the flu, I'm not sure people have an understanding of how deadly it actually is. We accept the deadliness of the flu and move on with life because the alternative would defeat much of the point of living. Same as we get in cars every day which kill thousands constantly. Having a suggestion of everyone to simply be more hygienic and socially distance is reasonable, everything else is way beyond necessity.
This is a common statement about the vaccines currently being deployed. What is less common is that the expositor of this perspective has considered that the same is true of the virus itself.
Shingles afflicts people decades after they have recovered from chicken pox. I remember HIV treatments in the 90s that were thought to work until it was later discovered that the virus can hide in various organs and wreak havoc later.
Regardless of the comparisons to other pathogens, nobody today can make a credible claim about the impact a Covid infection will have on a person 20 years later.
As a society, the choice is crystal clear: vaccines that do not kill people today versus a virus that demonstrably overwhelms health systems, killing lots of people now. This is as close to an IQ test as it gets in public policy.
If you scroll to the map with state-level data, you can see it has started to resemble the electoral college map. Having checked it out nearly everyday for months now, that resemblance is only growing stronger as time goes on.
At a certain point, there may need to be some designation given to certain states or counties - something like a travel advisory - so people know if an area has or is likely to have a COVID outbreak due to low vaccination levels.
