Vaccine mistrust threatens COVID immunity

Fewer than three quarters of people around the world say they are likely to use a vaccination against COVID-19 if one is approved by regulatory agencies, falling short of the levels required to achieve collective immunity, a study says. The study, which polled the opinions of over 13,000 people from Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas and was published earlier this month (October 20) in the journal Nature Medicine, revealed that 14 per cent said they would refuse the jab, while another 14 per cent were undecided. According to the researchers, this means vaccine coverage rates would fall short of the 80 per cent required to protect society against COVID-19, the respiratory disease which has caused national lockdowns across the world since it emerged in China at the end of last year. “We haven’t reached the 80 per cent, that’s what we would have liked to see,” Jeffrey Lazarus, lead author of the...