Join 350,000+ subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of
The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
"We know the U.S. has more than enough vaccines for everybody who is eligible," CNN's Jake Tapper said to National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief Anthony Fauci in an interview Sunday. So why isn't everyone getting a shot?
"You know, Jake," Fauci replied, "it's an inexplicable pushing back." He continued:
I really don't have a good explanation about why this is happening. I mean, it's ideological rigidity, I think. ... Vaccinations have nothing to do with politics. It's a public health issue. ... I just don't get [vaccine opposition among Republicans]. I mean, and I don't think that anybody who is thinking clearly can [share it]. What is that all about? I don't understand that, Jake. [Fauci, via CNN]
We're 16 months into this pandemic, and vaccine skepticism is nothing new — nor is it a mystery. The most intense vaccine critics never shut up, and we have plenty of data on which demographics aren't vaccinated and why. If Fauci is truly puzzled here, if he truly doesn't understand why people oppose the COVID-19 vaccines, perhaps he should expand his news diet. (May I suggest a subscription to The Week?)
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
I don't think Fauci is actually confused, though. I think he's faking confusion as a (remarkably poor) messaging strategy. A tip: Calling people rigid and stupid won't win them to your cause, and it's baffling that this is the tack Fauci is taking so long after the pandemic began.
What messaging would have a better shot at success? One idea I've suggested repeatedly is a certain flexibility: If you're talking to Republicans, for example, highlight former President Donald Trump's role in the vaccine development. If you're talking to Democrats, focus on how limited that role really was.
But there are many unvaccinated Americans who don't have a strong ideological stance here. (Outright refusers make up only around 15 percent of the country. Another 20 percent is reluctant but probably persuadable.) Lots of people have a more practical concern, like schedule constraints or the mistaken belief that you have to pay for the shot. Others want to wait and see if their friends experience side effects and so may come around on their own. Still others would overcome their hesitancy for a relatively small carrot, like a lottery ticket, free beer, or a little bit of cash.
I'm as eager for people to get vaccinated as any, but dumping all these folks into one "ideological rigidity" basket is counterproductive and unfair. Fauci should know better by now.
Sign up for The Week’s Good News newsletter
Stories of progress and joy, delivered every Thursday
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
