“Vaccine hesitancy is to be expected in a normal circumstance—it’s very different from being what we call ‘anti-vaccine,’” says Dr. Rahul Gupta, Senior Vice President and Chief Medical and Health Officer at March of Dimes, in this week’s Friday Podcast. He spoke at a recent Wilson Center event on ongoing efforts to develop and deliver a COVID-19 vaccine, co-sponsored by the University of Pittsburgh, March of Dimes, and the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation.

“It is normal for average citizens and residents to be questioning the vaccine before they take it into their bodies. That’s where the transparency of the manufacturing process, the regulatory process, and building trust in that system is so critical and important. It is not wrong, at all, to be hesitant. What is important is to demand that we have a safe and effective vaccine,” said Gupta.

“Leadership matters,” said Dr. Lisa Waddell, Chief Medical Officer of COVID-19 Emergency Response at the CDC Foundation. “If we have a consistency in messaging around the vaccine and everyone is actually sharing that message, then yes, it is going to build trust.” It is important to communicate early, often, and in different ways to ensure that people receive these messages, said Waddell. We also have to consider the role health inequities and racial injustices play toward vaccine hesitancy, particularly in African American and Latinx populations, and provide information on the COVID-19 vaccine and address concerns through trusted messengers, said Gupta. “It is good to ask questions and it is good and important to have trusted messengers in front of you who can answer the questions, who can relate, who can communicate,” said Dr. Paul Duprex, Director of the Center for Vaccine Research and Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh.

“We have before us a national and a global teachable moment when it comes to vaccines,” said Dr. Ruth A. Karron, Director of the Center for Immunization Research and the Johns Hopkins Vaccine Initiative at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. While vaccines are regularly researched, developed, and deployed, the process is not often on center stage. This gives us an opportunity to really educate the public, said Karron. “And I think that if we do this right, we could not only increase confidence in COVID-19 vaccines, but increase confidence in all of the vaccines that we deploy.” 

“It’s important to remember that we need to champion these products, we need to show what they have done in the past,” said Duprex. Polio, which ravaged the world’s youth for decades, has been “pushed to the edge of eradication by safe, efficacious vaccines,” he said. “I think we have to remember not to forget. Not to forget what these diseases did in the past and to actively collaborate, to work with each other, and to communicate well that vaccines work.”