STAT When the first Covid-19 vaccines were developed, I felt cautiously optimistic. As a sociologist focused on public health, I believed these scientific breakthroughs would mark the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
Yet vaccine hesitancy presented an ongoing obstacle to public health efforts. Public discussion names misinformation and political polarization as the primary culprits. Media outlets amplified this narrative, framing vaccine hesitancy as a product of gullibility or partisan identity.