Vaccine hesitancy is real, but will it keep us from beating COVID-19?

More than one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began taking the lives of millions of people around the world, vaccines have emerged as the best defense against it.  The two-dose inoculations from Pfizer and Moderna, as well as the one-shot Johnson and Johnson vaccine that now requires a warning label, have been proven effective and safe for the vast majority of individuals. But concerns about the speed of their development, denial about the threat the virus poses to the young, and the traumatic legacy of public health initiatives in minority communities are among the cultural, structural, historical and political barriers that have formed against them. These obstacles are present in rural and urban communities in the Buckeye State.

In this episode of Dear Ohio, Curtis Jackson talks to a public health official in one of the state’s hardest hit counties, and two physicians and researchers at the Cleveland Clinic. They will explain the remarkable science behind the vaccines and the barriers forming against them.