Talk:COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States

Notable enough for inclusion

I see Marc Bernier and Jimmy DeYoung Sr are mentioned as if they are notable individuals. If they do not have Wikipedia entries, should they be included in a list of "American public figure anti-vaxers who have died from COVID-19"? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:36, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

This is a good point. Perhaps Jimmy DeYoung should be removed. Marc Bernier's death received considerable media attention and I think he warrants a mention. I will do more research and make the changes. --Wil540 art (talk) 20:05, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Given that Critics of COVID-19 safety measures that have died from COVID-19 has been deleted and List of COVID-19 deniers who died of COVID-19 is likely on its way to deletion, the purpose and format of this list should be given strong consideration. In my view, a few notable people should be mentioned in prose (per MOS:USEPROSE), not in a bullet point list format which gives each death undue visual emphasis, drags down the article quality, and simply invites more indiscriminate additions. --Animalparty! (talk) 23:32, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I appreciate this insight. I will work to edit the list into prose. --Wil540 art (talk) 17:19, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

Professional athletes section

Currently, the section describes when teams were fully vaccinated. What does this have to do with vaccine hesitancy? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:37, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Good point, I omitted the part about players being initially hesitant. Thanks for catching that, I added it now. --Wil540 art (talk) 20:04, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Review

An editor asked for feedback over on WP:WPMED so here are some thoughts.

• "Political antivaxx". I'm sure that some antivaxx may be political in nature... but I'm not sure what this means and what makes something political.
• "More than any point in history" I don't like this. It feels a bit "motivational" and like it's hiding details. Can we get some numbers in here.
• Use of "antivaxer" as a descriptor. You need to be careful with this, I would phrase this "who opposed the covid vaccine". antivaxxer is not the same as opposing the covid vaccine.
• I would argue that without context listing people who oppose the covid vaccine who have died is not WP:DUE, and feels like it can't be interpreted. What does it mean? How many vocal anti-covid-vax people are there? Are they especially at risk? What is the relevance of them dying? It might be relevant from a "perception" perspective, but it feels a little advocacy at the moment. Is there some context that justifies this a little more.
• I don't like "accept and trust the vaccine" on the grounds of vagueness, unless that wording or a paragraph that implies it is in the source. I had a quick look at the abstract.
• "As of September 2021, a judge did not grant a temporary block on mandatory vaccinations and the suit will continue through normal court procedures". This doesn't read well to me, there will have mean an hearing where there was the possibility of an injunction while the case was ongoing, this will have been declines, I guess there might be further hearings. But it feels like this should be "In hearing X, a judge declined to grant and order". I guess this might be going through several courts.
• The lack of "novelty of vaccine" as one of the causes of hesitancy is odd. A part of me suspects that this has been excluded because it is "plausible" to the reader, and all the reasons must be bad, because people who don7 t take the vaccine must be irrational. Of course... it might just be an oversight as well.

In general, I would quite like some polsci / polling data for some of the assertions about people's opinions rather than newspapers because of spin.

Talpedia (talk) 22:00, 4 September 2021 (UTC)

Thank you Talpedia for your thorough review. You make some good points, I will work to clarify and add more polsci data. My goal is a neutral point of view. I am open to it being added to the article instances of American who are vaccine hesitant and are thriving. That would be a great addition, the trouble is we only learn of someone's vaccine status when they are sick. I appreciate the intro you added to the deaths section, but I still think it is important to bring up these individual cases of vaccine hesitancy. --Wil540 art (talk) 14:19, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

I accept that antivaxx public figures who are infected from covid is relevant from a sociological viewpoint. I'm less convinced from a scientific viewpoint. We know that infection confers immunity which seems comprable to infection: https://sharylattkisson.com/2021/08/covid-19-natural-immunity-compared-to-vaccine-induced-immunity-the-definitive-summary/ and that some 30% of cases are asymptomatic. So we can safely assume that large numbers of vaccine skeptic people have been infected without even developing any symptoms. People win lotteries as well... lots of people take risky bets based on bad information and win. Talpedia (talk) 15:18, 5 September 2021 (UTC)

Psychology, Sociology, and Political Science

There is much to unpack here, and "misinformation" alone doesn't cut it. The vaccine hesitancy article is a series of rabbit holes in and of itself, and the public health situation is the United States is, to name but one example, a gubernatorial crazy quilt. So why are people swallowing misinformation? We'll have to parse all of this sooner or later. kencf0618 (talk)

Listing people who opposed vaccines have died

This all seems a little macabre, and perhaps disrespectful, and it almost feels antiscientfic. The benefits of covid vaccination have been studied and documented, I don't really feel that listing prominent people who took a misguided risk and died is legitimate here. I guess there is a place for "case analysis" of the experiences of people do whom avoidable things happen, and this might be useful. What I dislike is the element of "just desserts" rather than "sad outcome". In a sense I would prefer a list of famous people who didn't take the vaccine and died, rather than people who were vocal about other people not taking the vaccine. Of course, policy may well trump many of these arguments, I'm sure I can policify much of this in terms of WP:Due, but for now I sort of want to say - do we really want to do this? Talpedia (talk) 13:23, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@Talpedia: I don’t think this improves the reader’s understanding of the topic. Everybody dies. You could just as well create a list COVID‑19 vaccines advocates who have died. ‑‑ K (🗪 | ✍) 10:03, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

very long quotations

Hello User:Avatar317, thanks for editing https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_vaccine_hesitancy_in_the_United_States&diff=1064415221&oldid=1064369672 . One question about it, concerning copyright: I feel the quotation is quite long. I suggest to abbreviate it as follows:

“Ernby ... was not vaccinated against COVID-19 when she died earlier this week, according to friends. ... Ernby was staunchly opposed to vaccine mandates even before the pandemic. In late 2019, she spoke publicly against a new California law tightening immunization rules for California schoolchildren.”

Maybe even the following might suffice:

“Ernby ... was not vaccinated against COVID-19 when she died earlier this week, according to friends. ... even before the pandemic [, in] late 2019, she spoke publicly against a new California law tightening immunization rules for California schoolchildren.”

Most of the other facts are included in the headline, which may certainly be quoted in a citation. --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 16:48, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

In https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_vaccine_hesitancy_in_the_United_States&diff=1058181652&oldid=1057646550 , the quotation can be abbreviated/shortened, too:

“He called ivermectin ... a "miracle drug." ... The Lamb family and Daystar have ... promoted misinformation about the virus and vaccines.”

Wikilinking ivermectin this way makes parts of the quotation unnecessary, and favoring hydroxycholoquine for a time was not an idea of anti-science-ideologists. The info about RF Kennedy Jr. does not relate directly to the fact mentioned in the Wikipedia article. (Maybe the linking:   called ivermectin ... a "miracle drug."   is even better.) --Himbeerbläuling (talk) 16:48, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

I'm fine with shortening the quotes: I include quotes so that editors can easily see specifically which statements in the reference MOST support the statements in the article, and so readers can have some confidence that the references are being reasonably summarized/paraphrased. Thanks for asking!---Avatar317^(talk) 22:35, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

done.--Himbeerbläuling (talk) 15:16, 26 February 2022 (UTC)

Bias

"a majority of the medical community correctly accepts and trusts the COVID-19 vaccines"

"correctly" shows clear bias here. It is an opinion whether or not it is "correct" to receive a medical treatment. 88.9.153.238 (talk) 21:40, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Inaccurate language

"in general, are due to misinformation because the COVID-19 vaccinations have been determined safe and effective."

Determined by whom? And how can you generalize that people choose not to get vaccinated due to misinformation? 88.9.153.238 (talk) 21:44, 3 September 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Technical and Scientific Communication

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 August 2022 and 9 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Strout89 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by M0rgan100237 (talk) 14:18, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Good to hear @M0rgan100237 and @Strout89. The article needs some good copy editing and updating! If you want, I can help by updating the Professional athletes section. Wishing you luck in the class and thank you for picking this topic to edit and improve. Wil540 art (talk) 03:07, 22 September 2022 (UTC)