Please Get Vaccinated

And please drag your family to get their shots if you have to

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A little less than a quarter of Arkansans are fully or partially vaccinated against Covid-19 as of Tuesday. That puts us below the national average, and near the bottom of state rankings; it’s a lag replicated across red states that may ultimately affect everyone in the nation. Our state’s governor, Asa Hutchinson, said supply has outstripped demand. He’s called on employers to take leadership roles by holding vaccine clinics at their workplaces, and said the state would try to push for vaccine sites at shopping centers, schools, and school sports venues. Every adult over 16 is eligible, but Hutchinson blames the vaccine hesitancy on a perception that the threat has declined, despite the presence of the contagious and virulent UK strain here. I am one of that small percentage that is fully vaccinated: I had my second shot two weeks ago. After each dose of Moderna, I was down for a day and a half with a fever, which sucked but was a small price to pay for the promise of returning to normal.

Is a perceived decline in risk why people aren’t getting vaccinated, though? There was already a decades-old anti-vaccination movement plaguing this country, bringing back long-gone diseases like childhood measles and pertussis. In 2019, the year before the pandemic lockdowns began, the number of measles cases hit 704 according to the CDC, “the largest number of cases reported in the country in a single year since 1994, when 963 cases occurred, and since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.” There are a number of villains to blame in this: that long-ago discredited Lancet study that started it all, the “natural” parenting movement, a general and somewhat healthy suspicion of Big Pharma, the decline in respect for scientific authority and, with it, the truth. But one of the biggest has to be the erosion in a sense of civic responsibility, a trend that has plagued us in many ways.

In a 2017 study about vaccine hesitancy and moral values in Nature Human Behavior, researchers found that people who were most reluctant to have their children vaccinated scored high on values of purity and liberty. That makes it hard to appeal to the community health aspects of vaccines—our health depends on those around us, so we all go through a moment of discomfort and bear a tiny, minuscule risk of harm so that the community as a whole can be safer. It’s a necessity that asks us to subsume any sense of personal liberty and individual decision-making to the greater good and asks us to trust scientists, and a surprising number of people won’t do it.

In the case of Covid-19, every new infection is an opportunity for the virus to mutate and evolve, to get better at finding new hosts to infect and better at making them sick, to overcome the efficacy of the vaccines. We need to get as many people vaccinated as quickly as possible to keep that from happening. That appeal to the public good has been failing to a small but significant degree since the beginning of the pandemic. Most people have been persuaded to wear masks, stay at home, and avoid friends and family, but the sizable minority who very loudly refused to participate kept interfering with our efforts to crush the curve, kept making people needlessly ill, and definitely caused unnecessary deaths. The promise of herd immunity could likewise be compromised if they also refuse to become vaccinated.

Anti-vax sentiment is hard to measure in this instance, because it’s unclear if people are just slow to get vaccinated or really don’t want to do it. From the vantage point of rural Arkansas, I’ve heard a number of reasons people say they aren’t getting vaccinated: People say the approved Covid-19 vaccines are experimental (they’re not), dangerous (they’re not), or don’t even work (this, because the CDC kept its mask recommendation in place.) A Pew Research Center survey released in March found that white evangelicals are the most hesitant group in the U.S.; 45 percent say that won’t or probably won’t get the vaccine. Arkansas is heavily white evangelical protestant. It makes sense, since this group highly values both the idea of personal liberty as they define it (I can do what I want) and bodily purity (God decides what happens to my bodies), and since they heavily supported Trump, who has been spouting conspiracy theories over facts since the beginning of his political life.

What’s almost as bad, though, is that Arkansans are charging into a return to normal life, vaccinated or not. The mask mandate is lifted and few are wearing them. Restaurants are open and people are in them. School and school sports have returned. My biggest worry is that some out-of-the-way spot like my hometown will breed an especially bad new variant that the current vaccines are ineffective against, setting us all back to (almost) square one.

What I’ve Been Writing:

I wrote about the crisis in caregiving for The New Republic. When I thought about this piece, I thought about the issues that caregivers of elderly or dependent relatives face that can’t be solved with more money or more funding—the squeeze on our emotions, time, and labor that comes from taking care of others. It’s a real problem, and is only likely to get worse. Women disproportionately bear it.

What I’m Recommending:

There’s a new newsletter about the glories of canned fish. You can also consult this Serious Eats article for great recommendations. I am, perhaps oddly, not tired of keeping my cupboard full and spacing out my grocery store runs. When I think about some of the activities and habits that may stick around post pandemic, maybe keeping a cabinet stocked with non-perishable foods will be one of them. (Along with, please, washing our hands often.)

Cute Animal Pic of the Week:

I love poodles. They’re such good, smart dogs. This is Chloe, who let me take her picture and then paid me with kisses.