While scientists race to produce an effective coronavirus vaccine in such a short time and political leaders scramble to contain the growing number of confirmed cases and deaths, some supporters of the anti-vaccine change their minds.
Haley Searcy, a “fully anti-vax” mom from Florida told reporters, “I was just as scared of vaccines as I was of the diseases they protect against.”
Back then, she “begrudgingly allowed her [daughter] to be vaccinated” after being advised by her daughter’s pediatrician, as she believed that vaccines were unnecessary and dangerous.
She said, “Since Covid-19, I’ve seen firsthand what these diseases can do when they’re not being fought with vaccines.”
“My mother has a lung disease, so if she gets Covid-19 there is no fighting it. I learned as much as I could to speak out against misinformation in the hopes that I could convince more people to stay home and follow social distancing so that she won’t get sick.”
Searcy learned about how pandemic in the recent times were fought with vaccines, and said, “I’ve learned just how rigorous vaccine trials are before they’re made available to the public.”
According to a poll conducted for the Vaccine Confidence Project, a research group at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, countries such as France and the UK, people expressing concerns about vaccines have softened.
VCP Director Heidi Larson said that as the number of coronavirus deaths increased, more people are willing to accept the vaccine.
“I think it definitely is provoking people to rethink a lot of things,” she said, but she pointed out that the research needs more data to track reaction over time.
“This is an important time to reflect on the value of vaccines,” she added, “If we had had a vaccine for this, we wouldn’t be locked up in a room, the economies wouldn’t be crumbling, we would have been a whole different world. The question I would ask is, do we have to wait for something to be this bad?”