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'Patience has worn thin': Frustration mounts over vaccine holdouts - The Washington Post

'Patience has worn thin': Frustration mounts over vaccine holdouts - The Washington Post

'Patience has worn thin': Frustration mounts over vaccine holdouts - The Washington Post
Jul 23, 2021 2 mins, 27 secs

Seven months after the first coronavirus shots were rolled out, vaccinated Americans — including government, business and health leaders — are growing frustrated that tens of millions of people are still refusing to get them, endangering themselves and their communities and fueling the virus’s spread.

Kay Ivey (R) on Thursday lashed out amid a surge of cases in her state, telling a reporter it’s “time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks.” The National Football League this week imposed new rules that put pressure on unvaccinated players, warning their teams could face fines or be forced to forfeit games if those players were linked to outbreaks.

But after months of careful cajoling, a growing number of Democrats and Republicans are venting about the sheer number of Americans who remain unvaccinated, particularly as hospitals are becoming overwhelmed in states with low vaccination rates.

Public health experts say they’re grappling with an irony: Americans who are already vaccinated tend to treat the coronavirus threat more seriously than many of the unvaccinated — even though the delta variant is poised to tear through populations that lack protection.

Alabama, for instance, has seen a 92 percent increase in coronavirus infections and a 72 percent rise in hospitalizations over the past week.

Meanwhile, the NFL amped up its efforts this week to persuade holdout players to get vaccinated.

The move has both competitive and financial implications: Players won’t get paychecks for forfeited games, the NFL said.

About 80 percent of all NFL players had at least one shot before the rules took effect, said league spokesperson Brian McCarthy, who credited seminars about the vaccines’ benefits, on-site vaccinations and other tactics.

Messaging experts counseled for months that blaming unvaccinated Americans would only backfire.

“I assumed it would be easier to convince people to get vaccinated as more and more people did,” said Frank Luntz, the longtime GOP pollster who has worked with the Biden administration and congressional Republicans to encourage people to get vaccinated.

While the White House has been careful not to blame unvaccinated Americans, the administration last week debuted its new, targeted messaging strategy: “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” Coined by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky, the phrase has become part of the White House’s push for more Americans to get inoculated.

A new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 80 percent of Americans who remain unvaccinated said they probably or definitely will not get the vaccine.

The survey also found 64 percent of unvaccinated Americans have little-to-no confidence in the vaccines working against variants, despite evidence showing otherwise.

Some health-care officials said that the recent surge in cases is even more reason to stick with messages that patiently walk through the benefits of being vaccinated, rather than shift to a more aggressive tone

Kumar said his brother died in India about two months ago of the coronavirus while waiting to be vaccinated, before doses became widely available in that country

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