Convincing People to Get COVID-19 Vaccinations Will Likely Require Anecdotes and Data

With two COVID-19 vaccines pending eminent FDA review, the biggest hurdle to widespread vaccinations is simply convincing people to be vaccinated.

That’s harder than it should be. These vaccines face a double challenge. The first is the growing global mistrust of government and health authorities around vaccination. The second is the vaccines themselves. The mRNA vaccines that will become available first are a completely new type of vaccine that uses a different mechanism of action to confer immunity. Many of the details – including duration of immunity – are unknown, so people are naturally concerned.