(INDIANAPOLIS) – Seven months after the first COVID vaccines were approved, half of eligible Hoosiers haven’t gotten it.
In early April, Indiana was averaging nearly 50,000 vaccinations a day. The average now is 7,000. Marion County health director Virginia Caine says older people not only became eligible first, but were more likely to want the vaccine in the first place. She says younger people — especially younger men — are historically more likely to think themselves invincible, and less likely to seek health care. Caine says that’s carried over to the vaccine.
Nearly two-thirds of Hoosiers 45 and up are fully vaccinated. Barely a third of those 12 to 44 are.
Caine acknowledges those most eager to get the vaccine pursued it early. That means people with doubts about the vaccine make up a greater number of those who are left.
Caine says the reasons for those misgivings vary. State health commissioner Kris Box has called the vaccine the most tested in history — millions of shots have been given, with side effects rare. But Caine says the warp-speed development of the vaccine has led some people to worry it was rushed.
Others question the vaccine’s effectiveness. Just one of every thousand fully vaccinated Hoosiers has caught the virus anyway, while one of every 20,000 has been hospitalized. Since vaccinations began, 99% of Indiana hospitalizations and deaths have been unvaccinated people.
