Axios Vitals: Vaccine hesitancy is decreasing in the U.S.

1 big thing: Vaccine hesitancy is decreasing in the U.S. | Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Open in app View in browser   Presented By Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs   Vitals By Caitlin Owens ·Jan 27, 2021 Good morning. We're back: "Axios on HBO" returns this Sunday, Jan. 31 at 6pm ET/PT on all HBO platforms! See trailer. Today's word count is 807, or a 3-minute read.     1 big thing: Vaccine hesitancy is decreasing in the U.S. Reproduced from KFF ; Chart: Axios Visuals An increasing number of Americans say they want to get the coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible, per new KFF polling. Yes, but: Race, partisanship and geography still serve as major dividing lines for vaccine enthusiasm. And people of color are less likely than white Americans to say they have been vaccinated themselves or know someone who has. By the numbers: 41% of U.S. adults now say they'll get a vaccine as soon as it's made available to them, an increase from 34% in December. Another 6% said they have already been vaccinated. The share of adults who said they want to wait and see how the vaccine is working for others before getting it dropped from 39% to 31% this month. Between the lines: Vaccine enthusiasm increased across racial groups, but Black and Hispanic adults are still significantly more likely than white adults to say they want to wait and see before getting the vaccine, and enthusiasm is highest among white Americans. And while enthusiasm has greatly increased among rural Americans, people living in rural areas remain much more likely than their urban counterparts to say they definitely won't get the vaccine. Democrats remain the most enthusiastic political group about getting vaccinated, while Republicans' views remained nearly the same as in December. Only 32% say they've already been vaccinated or want the vaccine as soon as possible, and a third say they definitely won't get one or will only do so if required. What we're watching: White adults are more likely than Black and Hispanic adults to say they've already been vaccinated or know someone who has. Knowing someone who's been vaccinated is correlated with vaccine enthusiasm, suggesting that progress on equity will beget progress on hesitancy — which will benefit us all by getting us closer to herd immunity.     Bonus chart: The vaccine-connected Reproduced from KFF ; Chart: Axios Visuals     2. One year of the pandemic Data: CSSE Johns Hopkins University; Map: Axios Visuals One year ago today, a novel coronavirus was barely beginning to catch the public's eye. There were just over 2,000 confirmed cases worldwide, mostly in China, and five cases in the U.S. The big picture: The sea of red says it all. Today, there have been over 100,000 cases worldwide, led by the U.S. with 25 million.     A message from Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs The Rebate Rule is the wrong prescription for lower drug prices     The Trump Administration's prescription drug "Rebate Rule" will raise seniors' premiums by up to 25%, skyrocket government spending, and will not deliver the lower drug costs that patients need. Learn more about why it should be overturned.     3. Biden administration to boost vaccine delivery The Biden administration plans to increase its COVID-19 vaccine shipments to states and tribes from 8.6 million doses per week to 10 million per week for at least the next three weeks, as part of an effort to vaccinate the majority of the U.S. population by the end of this summer, Axios' Orion Rummler writes. Why it matters: Hospitals in states across the U.S. say they are running out of vaccines and the country's death toll is sharply rising. Moderna and Pfizer have both said their vaccines are effective against the new coronavirus strain first identified in the U.K., which has spread more rapidly and been detected in at least 12 states. Moderna says its vaccine is also effective against the new strain that first appeared in South Africa. Details: The Biden administration says it plans to buy 100 million additional doses each of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines, and aims to vaccinate 300 million Americans by this summer. The Department of Health and Human Services will be instructed to give states a three-week estimate of incoming vaccine supply, instead of a one-week outlook.     4. Bill and Melinda Gates' warning Bill and Melinda Gates warned in their annual letter Wednesday that the lasting legacy of the coronavirus pandemic could be "immunity inequality" — a wide and deadly gap between wealthy people, with easy access to coronavirus vaccines, and everyone else. Why it matters: As long as there are large swaths of the world that can't get vaccinated, they warned, it will be impossible to get the pandemic under control, Axios' David Nather writes. "From the beginning of the pandemic, we have urged wealthy nations to remember that COVID‐19 anywhere is a threat everywhere," Melinda Gates said in the letter. "Until vaccines reach everyone, new clusters of disease will keep popping up. Those clusters will grow and spread. Schools and offices will shut down again. The cycle of inequality will continue." Bill Gates said the world should prepare better for the next pandemic by spending "tens of billions of dollars per year" — mostly contributed by wealthy countries — to improve the scientific tools for fighting infectious diseases. He also called for the creation of a "global alert system" to detect disease outbreaks as soon as they happen, as well as the use of "germ games" to help train first responders. "To prevent the hardship of this last year from happening again, pandemic preparedness must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war," he wrote.     5. Catch up quick Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios   A week into the job, President Biden's White House medical team has administered the coronavirus vaccine to several hundred staffers — and aims to vaccinate all in-person staff over the next few weeks, officials tell Axios' Alayna Treene. The CDC said yesterday that in-person schooling can be done safely, as long as masks and social distancing are maintained, per NYT. The U.K. on Tuesday surpassed 100,000 coronavirus deaths almost a year after the first two cases were reported in the country, according to government figures. The EU threatened potential legal action and proposed tighter export controls yesterday after AstraZeneca and Pfizer announced cuts in coronavirus vaccine supply, the Washington Post reports. The Biden administration is considering expanding mandatory coronavirus testing to passengers on U.S. domestic flights, a CDC official said yesterday, per Reuters.     A message from Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs Premiums for seniors will skyrocket under the Rebate Rule     The Coalition for Affordable Prescription Drugs, alongside other concerned organizations, urges the Biden Administration and Congress to protect seniors from higher premiums by overturning this rule and enacting reforms that lower Rx prices. Learn more.     Axios thanks our partners for supporting our newsletters. Sponsorship has no influence on editorial content. Axios, 3100 Clarendon B‌lvd, Suite 1300, Arlington VA 22201   You received this email because you signed up for newsletters from Axios. Change your preferences or unsubscribe here.   Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up now to get Axios in your inbox.   Follow Axios on social media: