How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn't be surprised

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprised

Low vaccine rates may be the predictable outcome subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s, health researchers say

Jessica Glenza
@JessicaGlenza
Mon 27 Sep 2021 07.00 BST

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There are very specific, well-documented reasons that Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. They vary from the troubling way the medical system treats people of color, to vaccine misinformation campaigns overwhelmingly popular in conservative circles, to logistical challenges.

But population health researchers, whose work considers how society as a whole is fairing, said low vaccine uptake may be looked at another way: as the predictable outcome of a campaign subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s.

“When I look at this I do see a very familiar pattern,” said Dr Steven Woolf, a prominent population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University. “When Operation Warp Speed came out I thought I was just seeing a modern example of this old problem where the scientific community developed the vaccine at ‘warp speed,’ but the implementation system for getting it out into the community was inadequate”.

Woolf calls this “breakthrough without follow-through”. In that light, the plodding vaccination campaign could be seen as one more aspect of the American “health disadvantage”.

The phrase describes a paradox: the US houses among the most advanced medical and research centers in the world, but performs poorly in basic health metrics such as maternal mortality and infant mortality; accidental injury, death and disability; and chronic and infectious disease.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/us-vaccine-effort-derailed