[FRIAM] vaccine

[David Eric Smith]

If one had time to do a good study design (which sounds hard), it would be nice to create measures of social trust (what can you count on other people to do for you) and responsibility (what you believe you owe to others and feel compelled to provide).  Then divide into the same cohorts, and find out how much of this response is explained by the trust and responsibility dummy variables.  (I know there are studies of that kind that exist, and there is lots of editorial writing invoking it as a cause; I don’t know whether this kind of regression has been done.)  

The trust variable really should have two aspects: what trust you have in people-at-large, and what trust you have in institutions.  The latter could be further subdivided, into what trust do you have in institutions even in principle or as a concept, and what trust do you have in them as-instituted just now.  That third level of division is not something I would actually want to do, because the artifacts of study design would get so severe and the signal so questionable that I wouldn’t want to draw any conclusions from it anyway.  However, for me, if Redfield is directing the CDC, and Azar is directing whatever he directs, and a month before Election Day there is a declaration that there is a vaccine available, I would not take it.  In the earlier eras of the CDC — say, when the public health officials of Taiwan came to visit CDC to learn how to design a pandemic response, because it was universally seen as the gold standard world-wide — I would probably have taken it.  I am told, through a friend who Is a working epidemiologist within the agency, that both of them are regarded as trouble, Redfield more through incapability than malice, Azar the more typical trumpish combination of both.

A problem with social trust, both in relation to individuals and institutions, is that it is the poster-child feature of a culture for lock-in.  Lack of trust makes people grasping and selfish, even if they aren’t mean-spirited (or don’t “mean to be” so), making it rational for others to not expect much support from them.  All these things change on the long timescales of human social/psychological development and also of institutional implementation, with the asymmetry that breaking tends to be faster than building (in both directions).

Amid the cross-fire and shit-storm of blame, by somebody against almost any group I can bring to mind, I have been struggling to decide whether there is some common thread of “American culture” that is a bigger principle component than other ones, for explaining why we are such an outlier in being unable to solve problems that many other countries consider challenging but manageable in some degree.  My current guess is that uncommonly low social trust and responsibility would be the variable that breaks us away from properly called “developed nations” and puts us somewhere on the continuum between them and failed states.

Eric


> On Aug 24, 2020, at 12:32 AM, Prof David West <profwest at fastmail.fm> wrote:
> 
> How many people on this list would take an approved (assume all standard procedures predated the approval) COVID vaccine if one were available?
> 
> I'll hazard a guess that it would be close to 90%.
> 
> A recent survey showed the percentages of those who would refuse a free government approved vaccine:
> 
> 19%   —  of Democrats
> 24%   —  of 18-29 year olds
> 30%  —  of people 65 and older
> 33%  —  white Americans
> 35%  —  large-city residents
> 41%  —  non-white Americans
> 44%  —  rural/farm residents
> 53%  — Republicans
> 
> Comments about how this proves the intelligence of Democrats over Republicans are not very interesting, even if the urge is overwhelming. Nor, comments about youth feeling invulnerable.
> 
> Why so many old people?
> 
> Why so many non-white people?
> 
> Why so many large-city residents?
> 
> How can the claim continue to be made that a vaccine is the only way to "return to normal?"
> 
> How many of you that sheltering-in-place will be happy to emerge into a world where maybe a third of the population declines to be vaccinated?
> 
> How many of you would be in favor of mandatory vaccinations?
> 
> Full disclosure: I would decline a vaccination, just as I have never had a flu shot and just as I would never take a statin drug.
> 
> davew
> 
> 
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