Covid vaccination fatigue is on the rise
The virus is still a thing, and the public are moving on too soon.
Surveys show an increasing public unwillingness to get vaccinated against Covid. We are not talking here of antivax sentiment, specifically, but rather an unwillingness to keep up to speed with developments, and receive vaccine booster shots. With the virus continually mutating, and new strains coming to the fore, this poses a considerable threat to public health.
Researchers led by Tanja Stamm at MedUni Vienna conducted population surveys in both Austria and Italy. Their more than six thousand survey participants were presented with a range of potential scenarios, with random variables such as the availability of updated vaccines; different forms of public health communication; costs; personal incentives such as financial rewards or vouchers; the emergence of new coronavirus variants; and legal regulations including vaccination certificates and vaccine mandates.
The results of the Vienna study1 show that the factors behind public cooperation with vaccine programme can be difficult to unpick. To make the task easier, one begins by dividing the population into subgroups based primarily on current vaccination status.
Folk who have thus far avoided the vaccine appear to have little confidence in political and social institutions, and are the least willing to be vaccinated. So no surprise there. Among those who had two or more vaccine doses, pandemic fatigue appears to be high, with middling degrees of readiness to receive further booster shots.
What stands out from the study is that the second group is far more likely to have vaccine boosters when presented with a figurative carrot in the form of rewards and other incentives. Those who have had three or more vaccinations are the most willing to receive boosters. The key determinants here are the availability of updated vaccines, easy access to vaccinations, an expert consensus on recommended vaccinations, and unambiguous public health messaging.
“In view of these findings, we recommend offering adapted vaccines at different times of year, retaining low-threshold access to vaccinations and ensuring that people take experts’ views into account in order to maintain high levels of immunisation among the population in future,” says Stamm, who stresses the importance of good public health messaging, and institutional measures that include positive incentives aimed at specific target groups. “In addition, the results of this study could provide decision makers and officials with guidance on future strategies, for example in autumn.”
There is also the need to boost confidence in politicians, the health service and science in the long term. But that, as they say, is an ‘ecumenical matter’.
Stamm et al., “Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine fatigue”, Nat Med (2023); doi:10.1038/s41591-023-02282-y