Disturbingly, I believe that the recent proliferation of medical misinformation is a scourge in our modern life in some ways paralleling the seriousness of the current COVID-19 pandemic. 

Over my relatively long life, I don’t believe I have ever witnessed the attempted perversion of truth by politicians and others, many of whom place their own personal agendas above the health and safety of their constituents, to the current degree that exists today. Luckily, I have immersed myself in the study and practice of medicine, and I am eternally grateful to have been trained and taught me to believe in facts based on scientific evidence. Studies now show that adherence to medical misinformation, combined with a lack of planning for resource allocation and poor decision making in this country, may have led to tens of thousands of excess American deaths due to COVID-19 over the past year and a half.

Now we have vaccines, which are highly effective against COVID-19 and available to literally every individual citizen of the U.S. It is recommended that the 3.4 million COVID-19 survivors take the vaccine too, as a way to increase their chances of avoiding a future infection. Scientific evidence tells us that the establishment of herd immunity against this virus will wipe its ability to infect humans. The sooner this happens, the sooner we will be able to analyze the mistakes made in combating the virus, and the sooner we will be able to prepare for the next pandemic while getting back to normal life. So what is taking so long? Sure, the highly effective and safe vaccines available in this country were developed very quickly, yet, as I explained in a previous message, two of the three products currently in use have been in development for nearly 10 years. President Biden’s ambitious goals of 1 million, then 2 millions shots in arms daily were realized, but his latest goal of 70% of Americans with shots in their arms by July 4 was not. Failure to achieve herd immunity as soon as possible will not only delay getting back to normal life, but may encourage the development of more and worse COVID mutant variants, which may not be covered by our current vaccines.

So how do we get to the magic plateau of 70% immunity U.S. population-wide? There is a significant segment of the population who have leaped into getting vaccinated against COVID-19 with great relish. There are some vaccine distribution problems in some urban and rural neighborhoods upon which I will not elaborate here, but remember that there appears to be enough COVID vaccine available in this country to vaccinate all of us. 

There are other segments of the U.S. population who will never accept vaccination. I will call these people “vaccine resistant.” A non-exhaustive list of these groups include: traditional anti-vaxers, many registered Republicans (predominantly male), QAnon followers and Evangelical Christians. There are a surprising number of healthcare workers and first responders who are vaccine resistant for reasons upon which I will not spend time explaining here.

The last category of potential vaccine targets I will call “vaccine hesitant.” These people are not completely against vaccination; they are “fence-sitters,” just not sure whether they should take it. Some say they just can’t be bothered with it right now. Others say they want to wait a little longer to see if the vaccine is safe in other people. These people need to be persuaded to become vaccinated. Some of the people may be susceptible to bribes. The state of Ohio is conducting a $1M lottery open to vaccinated individuals. Other states are offering free meals, beer, sports event tickets, and even free marijuana (which is not a medically advisable kind of bribe). I recently read that COVID vaccine administration may become the next historically unconventional treatment to be offered in the ED, along with childhood immunizations and suboxone treatment for drug abuse. Whatever it takes to successfully vaccinate this last group of unvaccinated folks seems worth it and very desirable to me. I believe that vaccinating this group of people is our best hope at reaching the threshold of 70-85% vaccination rate to achieve herd immunity. 

There are perpetrators of medical misinformation, consumers of medical misinformation, and victims of medical misinformation. Those victims are the 600,000 Americans who have been infected with COVID-19 and died. As I have said before, it behooves us in the medical field to convince as many people as possible to become vaccinated for their own health and for the safety of the rest of us. Together we can conquer the COVID-19 pandemic in this country, and then turn our attention and American generosity towards helping our fellow human beings who reside in other countries around the world.