Hit me with your best info/resources on Covid vaccines

August 20, 2021 12:31 PM

Asking for a friend, who has recently been approached by an vaccine hesitant person for some information on vaccines. Looking for your best up to date information on the vaccines that may help this person become NON-vaccine hesitant.

Additional details:

This person is willing to read information that is sent to them. They are open to multiple types and sources of information. The person has low trust in govt and science, but we are still looking for information-based resources.

posted by DTMFA to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

I like this article, which has a title that seems designed to be sort of click-bait-y but for a good cause: Three things to know about the long-term side effects of COVID vaccines
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2021

An article in our local paper recently highlighted the difference that high vaccination rates can make - Tennessee (where I am) and Massachusetts have similar total populations:

About 47% of Tennessee's population on Monday had at least one vaccination shot and 2,336 hospitalizations to treat people with COVID-19. Massachusetts had 70% of its population vaccinated with at least one shot and 402 hospitalizations Monday.

Tennessee on Monday had 708 COVID-19 patients in ICU beds while Massachusetts had 82.

Massachusetts had 38 COVID-19 patients on ventilators while Tennessee had 519.

The spread in Tennessee is much greater even though this state is much larger in land size and has less density of population than Massachusetts...

As of yesterday, MA is showing 48 patients on ventilators. As of yesterday afternoon, TN had 474.

TL;DR: vaccination makes a substantial difference in how many people will get sick and how many of those who do get sick will go on to develop life-threatening issues.

That doesn't necessarily speak to the vaccines themselves, but the only other sources I tend to lean on are scientific. Several hundred millions of doses of them have been delivered, and the news isn't full of adverse effects, so I'd tend to reckon that in their favor against the uncertainty of developing the disease myself or passing it along to someone else.
posted by jquinby at 12:54 PM on August 20, 2021 [3 favorites]

A friend of mine just (like yesterday) published a resource: Guide On How To Build Trust In COVID-19 Vaccination. Her area of work is how we frame and communicate ideas for behavioral/social change. It might be worth a look - though it advises against leading with safety data and facts, and it sounds like your friend may be receptive to those. (Also note it's a New Zealand resource and uses some Māori terms; hopefully these are obvious from context or can be run through Google Translate).
posted by Pink Frost at 1:44 PM on August 20, 2021 [2 favorites]

At this point, I do not think there is anything that we, as vaccinated people who are not scientists, can do to encourage the vaccine-hesitant to get the shot that doesn’t involve passing on information that will not be trusted, except to say, “Just ask your doctor.. He’s a scientist, and you trust him, right?”
posted by hhc5 at 3:01 PM on August 21, 2021

The FDA is going to formally approve the Pfizer vaccine next week which will make it just as certified safe as whatever medications they're taking.

If that and "ask your doctor" aren't enough... I just don't think there's any point in engaging with someone who is anti-reality.
posted by mmoncur at 9:46 PM on August 21, 2021