Who Are The Unvaccinated?

WAMU 88.5 | By Haili Blassingame

Published August 2, 2021 at 7:21 AM EDT

Registered nurse Darryl Hana prepares a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a three-day vaccination clinic at Providence Wilmington Wellness and Activity Center in Wilmington, California.

Covid-19 is surging in largely unvaccinated parts of the country. Parts of the South are being hit especially hard by the Delta variant.

But the danger has been slow to translate into policy or action. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey said that it’s “time to start blaming the unvaccinated.” Alabama has the lowest vaccination rate in the country.

Placing that blame is certainly attractive for many vaccinated Americans who want life to go back to normal, but finding a group to blame is tricky, if not impossible.

From Ed Yong of The Atlantic:

Their vulnerability to Covid-19 is the only thing that unvaccinated people universally share. They are disparate in almost every way that matters, including why they haven’t yet been vaccinated and what it might take to persuade them.

What will it take to get the unvaccinated vaccinated? We speak to two doctors living and working in places with some of the lowest vaccination rates in the country.