Lucy Carne: Forget anti-vaxxers, it’s the vaccine hesitant we should be worried about

Mistrust in a coronavirus vaccine is not just limited to anti-vaxxers, which is why the government must calm people’s fears.

“To be honest, I’m questioning whether I’ll have a COVID vaccine,” my male co-worker mused last week. “I feel like I need to -”

“Kill some elderly people?” I helpfully interjected.

Office banter aside, the reality is this is a conversation that has suddenly become commonplace.

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Vaccine hesitancy is perhaps far more prevalent than we’d like to realise. And we should be concerned.

These are not lunatic fringe dwellers. They are not unhinged heretics who claim COVID-19 does not exist or that the 1.44 million deaths (so far) are fake.

They don’t throw a ‘cute’ sonnenrad cartoon on social media.

They’re not nutjobs counting their cryptocurrency and stockpiling crossbows as they await the reign of the lizard wizard.

They don’t believe Bill Gates is secretly trying to microchip the global population.

These are educated, open-minded people, who are most probably vaccinated. They’ve no doubt vaccinated their newborns and their pets.

Vaccine hesitancy is perhaps far more prevalent than we’d like to realise. Picture: Justin Tallis / AFP

Unlike anti-vaxxers, they’re not immune to evidence. They believe in science and fact. But they’re worried about the coronavirus vaccine. And they’re not alone.

Only 58 per cent of Australians will get a COVID-19 jab when it’s available, according to an Australian National University survey of 2000 respondents, with women and young people the most resistant.

Sure, we are blissfully protected in our island bubble. But the pandemic has not gone away and a vaccine is the only way for our economy and society to reopen.

The sobering results are timely as the US teeters on the brink of an infection explosion, as hospitals struggling to cope with nearly 200,000 new infections per day and an average daily death toll of more than 1,500.

Likewise, Sweden – with triple the mortality rate of its Scandinavian neighbours – is in the midst of a second wave in what Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven has said as “a very serious situation”.

They have finally introduced restrictions, admitting that natural herd immunity is a myth and that the virus just keeps steadily steamrolling through the population leaving behind very few with protective antibodies.

Anti-vaxxers are a lost cause and always will be. Don’t even try and reason with them.

Mistrust in the imminent coronavirus vaccine is spreading. Picture: Justin Tallis / AFP

As a non-ironic, anti-vaxxer recently all-caps email yelled at me, I was “threatening public safety” by supporting inoculations.

But while they may be loud, they are insignificant.

In the seat of Nicklin in the recent Queensland election, outspoken anti-vaxxer Allona Lahn, running for the Informed Medical Options Party got a pathetic 1190 votes – the least of any running candidate.

If all the anti-vaxxers refused a jab, it would have little effect on the protection of the nation. But to dismiss the vaccine hesitant as loopy anti-vaxxers is misguided and potentially dangerous.

We need an urgent national conversation before vaccine refusal becomes a widespread reality.

There’s no point in the government rolling out a public information campaign once the vaccine arrives. They must do it now.

Like we did with the bowling Grim Reaper for AIDS, the ‘Slip, Slop, Slap’ seagull and ‘Life Be In It’ Norm, we need something to win over the public’s trust.

The government urgently needs to reassure people. Picture: John Cairns / University of Oxford / AFP

We need reasoned and balanced information to reassure that a vaccine is essential for all of us.

It can’t just be Qantas laying down the terms for post-vaccine life.

The government must respectfully address the concerns of the vaccine hesitant.

“Too rushed” or “hasn’t been tested enough” are key fears.

Already scientists are coming forward in an attempt to assuage worries and explain that expediency doesn’t mean cutting corners.

More on vaccines. I'm going to get boring and geeky on this (no apologies) on the 10 year thing. Vaccines "normally take 10 years". This is being use as a reason to be fearful (ie rushed job). I'm a clinical trials doc. I can tell you most of that time is spent doing...1/n

— Mark Toshner (@mark_toshner) November 17, 2020

As British doctor Mark Toshner explained in a viral tweet on why vaccines once took 10 years to develop: “I can tell you most of that time is spent doing … nothing. It’s spent submitting funding requests, then resubmitting them, then waiting, then submitting them somewhere else, then getting the money but the company changes its mind or focus, then renegotiating then submitting ethics, then waiting for regulators.”

Never before have so many of the world’s scientists, regulators and journalists forensically surveyed data from the more than 150 vaccines in development.

If there is a flaw, it will not slip under the radar.

That a new trial has been ordered of the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine due to questions over its efficacy in elderly should be comforting.

As Health Minister Greg Hunt said: “Australia will not accept a vaccine until it is safe and effective.”

Until then, more must be done to reassure the vaccine hesitant and allow common sense and reasoning to prevail.