Vaccine hesitancy can, in part, be laid at the feet of experts who betrayed the public’s trust.
by J.D. Tuccille
Reason.com
With COVID-19 still sickening and killing people even though effective vaccines have been widely available for all since the spring, it’s frustrating to see vaccination rates creep up only slowly against a head-wind of widespread resistance. It’s even more frustrating that much of that resistance can be attributed to self-inflicted wounds on the part of public health experts and government officials. Having effectively discarded their own credibility since the beginning of the pandemic, the powers-that-be find that much of the population no longer places faith in what they have to say.
“Why aren’t tens of millions of eligible Americans fully vaccinated against COVID-19?” The Economist and YouGov asked in a recent poll. “Most who haven’t started the vaccination process say it’s a matter of trust.”