We are very much an outlier when it comes to this as a country. And it hurts us in a lot of ways. And seems to be getting worse.
An outlier in the opposite direction is Denmark.
I found this piece about Denmark interesting.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...how-it-did-it/
On Sept. 10, Danish authorities lifted all pandemic restrictions and pronounced that covid-19 is no longer a “critical threat” in the country. Vaccination rates are high — 86 percent of all eligible citizens 12 and older have received at least one shot, and 95 percent of people 50 and older are fully vaccinated.
Denmark’s death toll during the pandemic was only 450 people per million citizens, compared to 1,982 per million in the United States. How did Denmark, and its 5.8 million people, beat the covid-19 pandemic?
As part of Denmark’s largest behavioral covid-19 research project (the HOPE project), we surveyed more than 400,000 individuals in Denmark and seven other countries. Our findings suggest that citizens’ high and stable trust in their health authorities has been a crucial factor in Denmark’s success. This trust, shown in the figure below, encouraged high vaccination rates and the successful implementation of key policies such as mass testing and coronavirus passports.
Research on vaccine hesitancy — including our own — consistently finds that lack of trust in authorities — government officials, local leaders and health experts, for instance — is one of the primary reasons people refuse to get vaccinated against the virus. This is hardly a surprise, given that few of us have more than a vague understanding of how vaccines work, let alone the ability to verify that the coronavirus vaccines will work as vaccine companies claim. This leaves people with a need to trust stakeholders, from scientists testing the vaccine to authorities approving and distributing it.
Over 90 percent of Danes trust the national health authorities, our survey data revealed. By last fall, over 80 percent of the eligible population was willing to get an approved vaccine, compared to less than 50 percent in the United States. While starting with high levels of trust certainly helps, sustaining this trust could be a challenge, especially if authorities may be tempted to promote vaccines that prove less effective or more risky than others. Our research shows that in these situations, transparent communication about all features of vaccines — including the negative ones — is key to sustain trust, even if in the short run it reduces vaccine acceptance.
This finding highlights that trust between citizens and the authorities ideally runs both ways, as authorities need to trust that citizens can weather bad news and still make responsible decisions.
in other words our government should treat citizens like responsible adults...but citizens also need to process information and act like responsible adults...both links of this chain need to be strong