MARTINSBURG (United States) – Patients stream steadily into the Covid-19 vaccine centre that Todd Engle can almost touch from his West Virginia backyard.
But like scores of other Republican voters, force is likely required to get a dose into his arm.
Many of the party’s millions of supporters are among the nation’s most vaccine-sceptical people, which experts see as a dangerous barrier to finally taming the virus that has killed more than 540,000 in the US.
“If they try to make me get it, they’re just going to (have to) put me in jail,” the 58-year-old Engle told AFP from the porch of his home here, referring to health authorities.
“I just don’t trust them.”
West Virginia is heavily Republican – over 68% of its voters chose Donald Trump in last November’s presidential election – and it has long been one of the nation’s poorest places.
Yet, not all West Virginia Republicans are vaccine sceptics.
The state of under two million people has been lauded for quickly getting Covid-19 vaccines to its people, while bigger, wealthier and Democrat-led states have sometimes struggled to do the same.
Part of that effort is the vaccine site behind Engle’s home, which operates in a recreation centre gymnasium with the kind of efficiency that bustling pre-pandemic airports could only dream of.
Nurse Angela Gray, 51, said the site has administered as many as 1,500 shots in a day.
‘Vaccine hesitancy on steroids’
“I try not to look at politics; that doesn’t matter,” said Gray as nurses in masks, face shields and gloves delivered shots behind her.
“But, I’ve seen a lot of my fellow Republicans who are getting vaccinated.”
She added that Republican elected officials in the area have spoken up for the safety and effectiveness of the shots, and gotten inoculated themselves, a key part of efforts to convince the sceptical.
But in towns across the US, doubters are numerous.
According to a poll last week, 41% of Republicans nationwide said they will not get the vaccine, compared with just 11% of Democrats.
It is a startlingly high number, considering that 74 million Americans voted in November for Republican candidate Trump.
African Americans and anti-vaccination activists have also shown high levels of opposition to the Covid-19 shots, but among Republicans, the phenomenon appears more directly linked to the US’ political polarisation.
Vaccine hesitancy expert Neil Johnson said he sees a collision of factors, including the belief that mainstream media outlets exaggerated the pandemic to hurt Trump, long-held resistance to vaccines generally, as well as distrust of the government.
“It’s like the usual hesitancy on steroids, because the distrust took on a political dimension because of the election last year,” said the George Washington University professor.
“It was like a perfect storm to have an election in the year of a pandemic.”
Trump, who often minimised the virus’ danger, on Tuesday gave his most explicit endorsement for the national mass vaccination campaign since he left office in January.
“It’s a great vaccine, it’s a safe vaccine, and it’s something that works,” he said in an interview on Fox News.
But, he left office without disclosing that he and his wife, Melania, themselves had been quietly vaccinated.
‘All about herd immunity’
For Christine Miller – treasurer of the Republican club in Berkeley County, where Martinsburg is located – Trump’s words came too late, because people have already decided.
“It’s a personal choice. People in rural areas, though, I don’t see them going for it. I see them doing too much research for themselves,” said the 63-year-old, who, as a cancer survivor with chronic bronchitis, is in a high-risk demographic.
She said she will not take the shots currently available.
“It’s not worth the risk,” she said before a club meeting, adding that she is concerned about reports – which experts said are rare – of serious side effects.
“I can wait.”
Johnson said waiting, or not getting the vaccine at all, carries significant risks for the US, which has by far the world’s largest absolute death toll and caseload.
“It’s all about herd immunity,” he said, referring to the point when most of a population has acquired defences against a virus, whether through vaccination or from having survived the disease.
Vaccination campaigns can reach large portions of populations, he said, but success is determined by whether an overwhelming majority of people can be inoculated.
If and when that point is reached here, it will most certainly be without 76-year-old Betty DeHaven, a Republican club supporter.
“They would have to hold me down and force me to take the vaccine.
“I consider that one of my rights, that I can refuse.” – AFP, March 21, 2021
