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Comment by dabbledash | Hacker News Reader

I hope you understand that we will not be “wiping out COVID” any time soon.

We need long term management strategies that are actually sustainable and protect the most vulnerable. And we probably need to worry less about persuading the die hards and more about things like standing up booster distribution and making ventilation improvements.

And a lot of the die hards will probably come around when the vaccine becomes part of the normal, boring health care routine instead of something they’re being “forced into” in an emergency, You know, you go in to the clinic in the winter with a cold. Doc asks if you’ve had your flu shot. Asks if you’ve had your COVID shot. That’s a much more comfortable context for people, I think.

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> And a lot of the die hards will probably come around when the vaccine becomes part of the normal, boring health care routine instead of something they’re being “forced into” in an emergency, You know, you go in to the clinic in the winter with a cold. Doc asks if you’ve had your flu shot. Asks if you’ve had your COVID shot. That’s a much more comfortable context for people, I think.

Have you looked at uptake rates for the seasonal flu vaccine?

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.ht...

> Flu vaccination coverage among adults ≥18 years was 45.3%, an increase of 8.2 percentage points from the 2017–18 flu season and 2.0 percentage points higher than the 2016–17 season.

That is not a bar we should be aiming at...

Well 70% of people adults are already on board, so we don’t need to worry about besting that number. The question is how do reduce resistance. My totally made up theory is that some people are just generally resistant to things being “pushed” from above, and some people are more concerned about new technology than others. Both of those things will probably improve as this cools off and becomes less political. In the mean time, there are other things we could be working on.

You are failing to account for identity politics.

I think it's far more likely that the expressed reasons you cite are, for many (I'd bet 15-20% of the population), just rationalizations for the underlying reason which is that being anti-covid-vaccine is now a part of some folks political, cultural, and/or religious identity.

And it is damn tough to break through something like that. That's doubly true when political and religious leaders are actively pushing people to not get vaccinated.

No, I’m not discounting it. That’s what I’m talking about when i refer to people resistant to things “pushed from above.” I’m saying that’s part of the issue, and it’s only going to be solved (if it can be), by depoliticizing the issue and making it a mundane medical concern. And that’s going to take time, and backing off the stick.

Or… you know, just give people 500 bucks (including everybody who already did it.)

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