The number of Americans willing to be vaccinated against COVID-19 may be as low as 50 percent, according to Science Magazine, the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Another poll, released in July, suggested that only about a third of Americans say they would be, very likely' to get a vaccine to prevent COVID-19, according to USA Today.
Experts say that the threshold for population immunity against COVID-19 may require between 50 and 82 percent of the population to receive a vaccine, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A COVID-19 vaccine may be months or years away from availability to the public as researchers race to develop and test viable options. While the public waits for breakthroughs, communications experts advocate that public health officials should start educating the public now to combat misinformation campaigns and promote vaccine acceptance, according to Science Magazine.
Peter Pitts, who oversaw public outreach efforts for the Food and Drug Administration during the George W. Bush administration, expressed his concern that no organized government strategy appears to exist to educate the public about the importance of the COVID-19 vaccine, according to USA Today.
According to Science Magazine, medical misinformation regarding COVID-19 and vaccines has proliferated on social media since the start of the pandemic. Damon Centola, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told the publication that social media posts can mislead people into believing that doing nothing to protect themselves against the novel coronavirus is a safer course of action.
Vaccine skepticism has grown increasingly widespread. In a 2020 study, researchers found that some people may believe vaccines are risky because they overestimate the likelihood of rare adverse side effects, according to Science Daily.
