Rebuilding public trust will instill COVID-19 vaccine confidence

Moderna’s 94.5 percent vaccine efficacy rate brings renewed hope that a preventative therapy to reduce the spread of COVID-19 may be close at hand. This news is especially welcome as cases continue to spike across the country. But unless the American people trust it (or any of the other vaccines currently under development for that matter), nothing will change.

Only half of the American adults would receive a coronavirus vaccine if it were available today. That number is down precipitously from over 70 percent in May. Even more startling, a smaller percentage — just 40 percent — of health care workers said they were likely to get vaccinated.