Trust in the COVID-19 Vaccines Is Growing—Take Advantage for the Sake of Your Patients and Your Business

As we’ve told you, the public’s enthusiasm for the COVID-19 vaccines was surprisingly muted once the initial excitement over their availability wore off. Doubt over their safety, especially regarding possible long-term effects, has kept too many people from getting the shot even though it’s the one definitive act that could help bring the pandemic to a close. An article just published by the Journal of the American Medical Association brings good news, however; as more and more Americans get vaccinated without having a negative experience, public trust seems to be growing and more of us are warming to the idea of immunization against the virus. After evaluating data from questionnaires completed by 7,420 participants every 14 to 28 days (in total, 42,154 survey responses), the researchers reported that vaccine hesitancy dropped from 46% in October 2020 to 35% in March of this year. Declines were greatest among black participants (a 21% decrease in hesitancy) and Hispanic participants (16%)—two segments of the population whose willingness to receive the vaccine has been shown to lag compared with other groups. If you’ve been turned down when offering the vaccine to patients recently, keep trying. Now that there are fees associated with administering vaccines, you have the opportunity to not only help curb the pandemic, but bring in new revenue.