EDITORIAL: Reaching out to those hesitant about the COVID vaccine

With Nevada’s COVID case numbers moving back up, state and local officials have been wise to resist reversing course and issuing new restrictions and mandates. Their focus should remain on increasing vaccination numbers among those who have expressed hesitation about the shots.

Nevada’s increasing virus case count remains well below January levels, when infections peaked. There is virtually no chance they will hit that point again, given the efficacy of the vaccinations.

“I think the United States has vaccinated itself out of a national coordinated surge,” Bill Hanage of Harvard’s public health school, told The New York Times this week, “even though we do expect cases everywhere. Delta is creating a huge amount of noise, but I don’t think that’s it right to be ringing a huge alarm bell.”

Indeed, the delta variant, which now accounts for the majority of infections in Nevada, spreads more easily but is apparently not more deadly. Vaccines provide sufficient protection against the strain. At this point, more than 60 percent of American adults have been inoculated, including a great majority of the vulnerable elderly population. That number doesn’t include adults who survived the virus and have chosen to rely on natural immunity.

In addition, recent studies in Europe, The Wall Street Journal reported last week, confirm that COVID poses little threat to children, who are not significant virus spreaders.

Officials in some areas have again issued calls for indoor masking, but most have shied away from compulsory measures. That’s wise. Public tolerance has worn thin in many quarters for government social distancing and face-covering orders. As the Times noted, such behavior may not do much good given the delta variant’s enhanced transmissibility.

Instead, policymakers must keep emphasizing that vaccines work extremely well. Breakthrough cases remain extremely rare. The White House’s COVID response coordinator reported last week that virtually all new virus hospitalizations and deaths in the United States are among the unvaccinated.

Not every American adult who has so far resisted sitting for the shots is a science-denying, anti-vaxxer who believes Donald Trump won the November election. Many are younger and feel no urgency for protection. According to CNN, a Kaiser poll this month revealed that 10 percent of Americans say they’re still “waiting to see how the vaccine works for others before they make up their minds.”

This presents an opportunity. While there will come a point of diminishing returns, Nevada officials and health professionals must more aggressively enact a strategy to identify those who may be hesitant, but ultimately willing, in terms of the vaccine. This, rather than more government edicts, is the most promising path forward.