Vaccination Incentives That Will Appeal To Vaccination Deniers
It is still unbelievable to me and many others who have spent their lives getting educated and educating others, that in the well endowed US we cannot get rid of a once-in-a-century deadly pandemic that is killing and disabling so many, still confining us, and damaging our economy, just because a third of the Americans who can get vaccinated for free, haven’t. A consistent 20% say that they won’t.
America has reached a marker today of 700,000 recorded Covid-19 deaths, although the IHME estimate of Covid-19 excess deaths is now at 1.083 million, or 55% more. At least a 100,000 recorded deaths have been during the current Delta variant surge. It is estimated that 75% of those were unvaccinated, and of an age where they could have been vaccinated. The other 25% were breakthrough cases, but they were infected by people who could have been vaccinated. Another source points out that of the last 100,000 deaths, only 2,900 had been recorded as vaccinated. It also contradicted that by saying that the odds of dying from Delta were 10 times as great if you were unvaccinated as opposed to vaccinated.
The sarcastic part was going to first point out that when we passed through the Vaccine Motivational Phase, it was reasonable and logical people who were guessing what would motivate the unvaccinated, and they missed badly. There were and are three better ways to do this. First, ask the vaccine deniers what would motivate them. Second, ask the principal disinformers who infected the vaccine deniers with doubt in the first place, what it would take to turn their audience around. Third, the polls of vaccine deniers never seem to get around to asking what is holding them back, and who or what could turn them around. Again, full FDA approval, imagined by the logical, did not have that effect. Even the supposed godsend, Trump, at a recent rally was booed by some supporters when he repeatedly urged them to get vaccinated.
The sarcastic part was me going to make what would sound as crazy motivational suggestions, but might appeal to the vaccine deniers with their unusual logic. However, we remember that Hillary Clinton made a serious mistake in her campaign of insulting a similar audience (calling half of Trump supporters a “basket of deplorables”), but I doubt if they would have voted for her anyway. The slowdown in vaccinations in Red states shows that there is some correlation with Trump supporters, but fortunately, vulnerable seniors are often getting vaccinated anyways.
Faced with the shocking and preventable deaths of 100,000 Americans, sarcastic humor is seriously impossible.
