The COVID vaccine is finally here. Hallelujah! It was thought that there wouldn’t be a dreaded fourth wave after all. In its place, though, we’ve been left with a tsunami of mistrust and disbelief. Against the backdrop of a tumultuous year for the African-American community, and also following the November presidential election that is still contested by some hardliners today, figures on both ends of the political spectrum have not responded all too well to the vaccine. The question is, can we blame them?
Vaccine skepticism is certainly not a novel idea. In fact, one of the earliest instances of such a mindset goes back to the mid-19th century in the midst of the smallpox epidemic. After a tragic miscalculation led to several deaths when the smallpox vaccine was first administered (of course, improperly), one could infer that in terms of momentum, the anti-vaxxer movement has never really slowed down.
But it’s been nearly two hundred years since such an occurrence. Technology has exponentially advanced and so has the Food and Drug Association’s (FDA) rigorous approval process. So what gives?
It’s not just the inconceivable conspiracists who conflate Bill Gates or George Soros with the “mind-controlling effects” of the vaccine that is part of the problem. Rather, the mistrust is a lot less superficial and plenty more extensive. In a poll conducted by the Undefeated and the Kaiser Family Foundation, 70% of black American respondents reported that they are treated unfairly by the healthcare system.
Now, this may not seem like a black-and-white issue, but it is — quite literally. Blacks that are deliberate in avoiding the vaccine seem to have a much larger problem with the healthcare industry in its entirety. Many of these individuals, a significant percentage of whom have only high school diplomas or none at all, have also reported less trust in their physicians and poorer health overall (go figure!), all of which comes down to a deep-seeded resentment of the establishment.
White Americans that have resisted the COVID vaccine, on the other hand, are often complacent in doing so because they are also doubtful of the government’s decision making, but for a different purpose. While Black Americans are generally apprehensive of the government as a construct, White Americans seem to have placed their wariness in the Biden administration. In a survey published by the state of Tennessee, where Trump won by over 22% of the vote in 2020, the 82% of whites who took part in it overwhelmingly opposed the vaccine, and many have come out against Biden’s response as a whole.
This is an explosive mixture of factors that has, unfortunately, coincided with the release of the COVID vaccine. Bar his failures and other missteps in 2021, if Donald Trump was still president and had endorsed the vaccine, we arguably would not be dealing with the sheer proportion of anti-vaxxers we see today. Whereas just ten years ago (read: ten), actress and “Hollywood crazy” Jenny McCarthy was shamed for attributing autism to vaccines, now the movement has spread like wildfire, and for a variety of different reasons to boot.
Even though the United States may be performing well in terms of vaccine administration when compared to the rest of the world, it is important to understand that the world follows the American lead. There is no better example of this than the torrent of populism that swept society immediately succeeding the election of Donald Trump in 2016. For the eradication of COVID to occur, we must eliminate it on all fronts — American front included.