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In 2020 California and several other states said that they would conduct independent safety reviews of the vaccines because they didn't trust the Trump administration. When state government officials make irresponsible statements like that it's not surprising that some people are hesitant.

https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/10/27/western-states-join-califo...

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With three out of those four states having vaccination rates that are now above average, how can you be sure that an independent safety review didn't have the opposite effect?

At this point it’s impossible to say what the effect would have been. The states that have the above average rates are all very blue and that tracks with the current political winds of the democrats regarding vaccines. The political opinion on vaccines immediately shifted 180 degrees on Biden’s win, because there there was no need to resist Trump and vaccine hesitancy was a tactic being employed by the resisters.

Independent review may have convinced some who were hesitant but I suspect they would have been the folks independently hesitant as opposed to the “politically hesitant”. The politically hesitant would hold out until their trusted party authorities blessed the vaccines.

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