Commentary: Dismissing those hesitant about COVID-19 vaccination as anti-vaxxers is short-sighted – Opinion

CNA online, 17 Aug - https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/why-people-have-not-taken-covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy-reasons-2115446

Understanding the reasons behind vaccine hesitancy and what shapes these worldviews hold the best chance of changing people’s minds, say Assoc Prof Edson C Tandoc Jr from NTU’s WKWSCI and the Director of the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet (IN-cube), Goh Zhang Hao, Post-doctoral Research Fellow at IN-cube at WKWSCI, and Asst Prof Kim Hye Kyung at WKWSCI, and a collaborator for the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet (IN-cube). According to survey data collected by IN-cube at NTU from 6,000 respondents across 10 cities in Asia, 287 out of the 600 participants in Singapore were still unvaccinated. Of these unvaccinated participants, 61 per cent were willing to get vaccinated, 20 per cent were unsure, and 19 per cent were unwilling. To counteract vaccine reluctance, more studies to understand this small segment of the population concerned about vaccination are needed to address refusal rather than to dismiss or shame such people outright as conspiracy theorists or uninformed “covidiots”.