In every conceivable way the Covid-19 vaccines are saving lives and it too easy to label anyone who continues to refuse one as ignorant, dumb, selfish or a Covidiot and according to a recent report by the International Monetary Fund, that covers up to 20%, or 13 million people, in the UK who say they will not take the invite to roll up their sleeve.
A fear of needles accounts for 10% of those 13 million but what about the other 11.7 million refuseniks?
The Population Health Research Institute at the University of London have been investigating what is influencing these people and have found five psychological and social factors that can influence people's decision-making around vaccines and they are not a politically or anti-scientific cause, they are just making a considered decision not to take the injection.
Labelled the 5C's, they decisions are weighed up on:
Confidence: the person's trust in the vaccines efficacy and safety focusing on any dangerous side effects of the vaccines.
Complacency: the person considers their chances of catching the disease are less than the average person so the possible risk of the vaccine outweighs the small chance of them catching it
Calculation: the individual's engagement in finding out about the virus, taking an out of sight out of mind approach
Collective responsibility: the willingness to protect others from infection, through one's own vaccination, a person with a small social circle will see little requirement to protect his peers than someone with a large circle.
Convenience: how easy it is for the person in question to access the vaccine
Obviously we need to be aware of the context of other people's decisions, certain ethnic groups have very little trust in medical authorities or the Government telling them to get vaccinated and the relaxing of restrictions may tempt some to not bother now as we are coming to the end of the pandemic but the good news is that a good proportion of the people who were initially hesitant, do end up taking the vaccine.
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