On Sunday, October 25th, the United States Department of Health and Human Services confirmed that Santa, Mrs. Clauses and his elves will be used to perform a public advertisement for the coronavirus vaccine, but the plan was scrapped.
As the cases of COVID-19 continue to exceed across the United States, the push for the approval of the vaccine is in review by experts. Many doctors and scientists nationwide will verify the vaccine’s safeness and affordability for all communities. According to the NYTimes’ Erin Ross, Oregon’s governor, Kate Brown, is quoted saying, “The independent review conducted by this panel of doctors, scientists, and health experts will ensure that a safe and effective Covid-19 vaccine is available to everyone, especially communities that have been disproportionately impacted by this disease.”
In the beginning of the academic year, a huge concern circled around children going back to school and exposing themselves to the germs in the environment. As a result, a push for the flu vaccine was created because the coronavirus symptoms are remarkably similar. Unfortunately, studies have shown that receiving the flu vaccine did not prevent people from getting sick or worse from the coronavirus. According to CNN’s Jessie Yeung and Yoonjung Seo reporting on October 23rd “At least 36 people have died after taking flu vaccinations since last Friday, including a 17-year-old. The average age of those who died was 74, according to the South Korean Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA).”
Many parents do not want to take their child to the doctors to get their flu vaccination because they believe it is unsafe. According to CNN’s Sandee LaMotte, “In addition, two-thirds of parents don’t believe getting a flu shot for their child is more important this year, despite advice to the contrary from major government organizations and pediatricians.” The question becomes, how will the government enforce getting the coronavirus vaccine to families who did not get the influenza vaccine? The answer was Santa Claus.
For many years, Santa Clause has been used in commercials to advertise different products, so Michael Caputo believed that the same could be done for vaccines in various public service campaigns, along with using actors. According to Forbes’ Sarah Hansen, “The plan would have cost $250 million in taxpayer funds, according to the Journal, and was intended to “defeat despair” and “inspire hope” through TV, radio, online, and podcast ads.”
Since the cancellation of this plan, many have been wondering how Americans will be convinced to take the vaccination, but presidential persuasion is believed to have an insignificant effect. According to Brookings’ Robert E. Litan, ”In principle, a President Biden could take executive actions or seek legislation – assuming Democrats control both the House and Senate and the filibuster rule is abandoned – penalizing those who don’t take the shots (for example, by requiring vaccination certificates before entering most public spaces). But imposing any penalties on people who don’t take the vaccine at the outset of his presidency – even if the penalties were both effective and constitutional, which is not at all clear it would be – would aggravate polarization, conceivably cause violence, and prevent any healing of the country that Biden has promised to usher in.”
Although the coronavirus numbers are growing, many Americans do not want to take the vaccine for personal reasons. According to NYTimes’s Phoebe Danziger, “The anti-vaccine movement was once linked primarily to wealthy white parents. Nowadays, these views are expressed both by liberal parents, who align with “natural” health and parenting identities, and conservative parents, who emphasize their distrust of government and the importance of individual liberty. Race matters, too: For some families of color, the sordid history of unethical experimentation on vulnerable communities makes them reluctant to vaccinate.”
The virus has affected everyone, not just a specific group of people. Americans need to be more engaging with community leaders and public figures to push awareness. This could be done in a multitude of ways because people rely on advice from ministers, doctors and more. Because parents have shared a huge amount of skepticism in the influenza vaccine, it is good to see advertisements made for children to try and enforce the importance of being safe to their parents.
Although government leaders are trying to advertise public safety, there are those who feel that the actions being taken are too much and seem forceful. “I can’t believe they are going to target kids to get the vaccine. They probably did that because anything including Santa is supposed to be good,” says Camillia Lalanne. Our country needs to turn its attention on the skepticism of vaccines because it is doing more harm than good. Vaccines cannot be effective if no one is willing to step up and take it.
