Stop talking about the possibility of coronavirus booster shots. Don’t bully people who are vaccine holdouts. And if you’re trying to win over skeptics, show us anyone besides Dr Fauci.
That’s what a focus group of vaccine-hesitant Trump voters urged politicians and pollsters during the weekend, as public health officials work to understand potential roadblocks in the campaign to inoculate Americans against the coronavirus. Among the most pressing questions are why so many Republican voters remain opposed to the shots and whether the recent decision to pause Johnson & Johnson vaccinations was a factor.
Although more than half of US adults have received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine, more than 40 percent of Republicans have consistently told pollsters they’re not planning to be vaccinated
Many vaccine-hesitant Americans are increasingly entrenched in their decisions to resist the shots, said Frank Luntz, a longtime Republican communications expert who convened Sunday’s focus group over Zoom. “The further we go into the vaccination process, the more passionate the hesitancy is,” Luntz said after the session. “If you’ve refused to take the vaccine this long, it’s going to be hard to switch you.”
While cautioning against drawing too many conclusions from a single focus group, public health experts said the nearly two-hour session offered insight on messages that could reach holdout Americans – and which messages didn’t.