The number of people who refuse to get the Covid vaccine because they don’t trust the government or science has risen in the past months, and doctors aren’t likely to be able to convince them otherwise, according to a new CBS News/YouGov poll.
The rate of adults who cite distrust of the government as their reason not to get the vaccine has risen from 40% to 50% from June and the number of people who say they “don’t trust the science” has grown from 33% to 45%.
The vaccine hesitancy appears to be largely among conservatives. About 29% of Republicans and 21% of independents say they will not get a shot, compared to just 6% of Democrats. About two-thirds of independents and 62% of Republicans have reported getting the shot, compared to 84% of Democrats.
The poll also found that people who are fully vaccinated are more likely (72%) to be concerned about the spread of the more transmissible Delta variant than the unvaccinated (48%) who have a far greater risk of serious illness.
And while many have argued that personal care providers are the best source of information to convince the vaccine-hesitant to get a shot, 74% of respondents who have not been vaccinated said they would not get the vaccine if their doctor recommended it.
Rise of mask mandates:
Los Angeles County and other local governments have begun to reimpose indoor mask mandates as Covid cases dramatically rise amid the spread of the Delta variant.
“It’s very reasonable for counties to take more mitigation measures like the mask rules you see coming out in L.A., and I anticipate that will happen in other parts of the country too,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told ABC News on Sunday.
Murthy stressed that while there have been breakthrough infections among the vaccinated, the infections are much less severe.
“The good news,” he said, “is not only is the vaccine highly effective at preventing severe infection, like hospitalizations and deaths, but even if you do have a breakthrough infection, which, again, happens in a very small minority of people, it’s likely to be a mild or asymptomatic infection. So my hope is that people will feel reassured by that.”
Biden admin faults social media misinformation:
The Biden administration has in recent weeks blamed social media companies for not doing enough to battle Covid misinformation for the slowdown in vaccines.
"They're killing people -- I mean they're really, look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated," Biden told reporters. "And they're killing people."
Murthy last week warned that health misinformation is "a serious threat to public health.”
The administration says it has been more active in reaching out to Facebook to flag misinformation but a source told CNN that meetings between the White House and the company have been “tense.”
The source said the meetings show that the company is either not "taking this very seriously, or they are hiding something.”
