In almost every sci-fi movie about a pandemic, there’s some trinket to differentiate the immune from the potentially infected. In 2011’s Contagion, the vaccinated received bar-coded wristbands; in the extremely triggering trailer for the forthcoming Michael Bay produced movie Songbird (a movie that asks “what if COVID but worse?”), K.J. Apa’s character flashes a yellow wristband to show he’s not a threat.
Real life isn’t a sci-fi movie, but Dr. Anthony Fauci did give us some cinematic hopes of rescue last month when he declared “the cavalry is on the way” in the wake of promising news about vaccine developments. In fact, the first vaccine doses could be administered as early as this month.
It will still be a long time before we can stop wearing masks and social distancing, even after the vaccine is widely available and deemed effective. It’s unlikely the shot will come with a dystopian bracelet like in the movies, but those flicks do raise questions that will soon become a real-world problem. How and when will public life resume once the vaccines are available? And how can public pressure—and even fashionable bragging—be used to get enough people to take it?
“We continue to see erosions in people’s willingness to take a vaccine,” said Scott Ratzan, a distinguished lecturer of Community Health and Social Sciences at the CUNY School of Public Health and an expert in health communication. “In lay terms, we’re in bad shape.”
Your neighbors might be watching
Experts agree the government is highly unlikely to mandate civilians get a COVID vaccination. So how do we get enough people to take it to functionally end the pandemic?
A least 70 percent of the population will likely need get the vaccine before we reach herd immunity, the point at which person-to-person spread becomes unlikely, Ratzan said. In an October study he co-conducted, 71.5 percent of people globally reported they would be “somewhat likely” to take a safe and effective vaccine, along with 75 percent of Americans; in some countries like Russia, the positive response rate was as low as 54 percent. Those numbers are worrying, he said.
One of the best ideas to rectify this problem may come from one of the simplest items: the “I voted” sticker. Studies show that applying social pressure that highlights how your neighbors are participating in things like voting, recycling, and blood donations can increase overall participation, said Christopher Larimer, a political science professor at the University of Northern Iowa and an expert in voter participation.
He’s worked on several studies over the years demonstrating that mailing people information about their own voting histories increased participation in voting. In other words, people are more likely to participate if they think they are being watched.
“People generally like to see themselves as voters because you view yourself as being a good citizen, paying attention to politics and paying attention to policy,” he said.
That same social pressure could be applied to vaccines, he said. The idea of “being watched” will of course freak out those who are already inhale vaccine conspiracies, but Larimer said that doesn’t mean Big Brother-type surveillance. Rather, public health campaigns can publicize how many people in a particular neighborhood or town have been vaccinated as a way to encourage good citizenship.
“Part of it is the expectations of what others are doing,” he said. “If people view it that way, if there is a way to show that you did get a vaccine and others are getting it, it could increase people’s likelihood of getting a vaccine.”
Of course that relies on the belief that getting vaccinated is indeed a social norm that is good for everyone, which is a controversial statement right now. But selfish desires to “return to normal” activities might actually save us.
The market will demand it
The resistance to taking a vaccine might crumble in the face of something many anti-vaccination people want most: the ability to go back to shoveling popcorn in their mouths at a movie theater or screaming for their team at a sporting event.
The U.S. government is likely to require armed forces, defense officials, and other key employees to get a vaccine, said Arthur Caplan, the founding head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Health. But everyone else is on their own.
“In the end, the private sector will be mandating vaccines faster than the government,” he said. The anti-vaxx argument will sort of flip at that point, he said: vaccination will open up more doors. Travel companies and tourist destinations will particularly quickly jump on vaccination requirements and publicizing vaccination rates.
“If you vaccinate, the usual argument is you’re taking away my liberty to choose,” he said. “If you’re getting vaccinated in the middle of the plague, you’re getting more liberty because you can go more places.”
Horniness alone could encourage vaccination: dating apps might even start asking for proof that you got the shot before you can shoot your shot, he said.
Businesses themselves should step up and require employees to vaccinate before returning to the workplace, Ratzan said. He cited the example of theater in New York City, an industry that employs more than 90,000 people. In the absence of universal vaccine verification, the theater industry could band together to form its own kind of certification process for performers and audiences.
“It’s in everybody’s interest to get that back open,” he said.
There might be an app for that
At some point post-vaccine, people will be eager to ditch the masks and try to go about some version of “normal” life, whatever that may look like. While we won’t get a wristband or badge like in the movies, there will likely be a lighter dystopia in the form of apps you can use to show you’ve been vaccinated, Caplan said. The apps might be on a state-by-state basis, similar to the coronavirus tracking and alert apps developed by Apple and Google and in use now in 18 states, including New York and California.
But even in that case, the private sector might act more efficiently. For air travel, two apps are in the works that would verify vaccination status. Called CommonPass and IATA Travel Pass, the apps would, according to the Washington Post, act like enhanced digital boarding passes, containing your health data, vaccine documentation, and travel plans. A handful of airlines are set to start using CommonPass this month to verify passengers on certain routes have gotten COVID tests before boarding, the Post reports. Vaccine certification would be added at a point still to be determined.
Even if you are trying to stay on the ground and return to the joy of paying $18 for a beer surrounded by 10,000 people, you might need to flash an app: Events behemoth Ticketmaster is considering using its app to verify vaccination and testing results, according to Billboard. (Ticketmaster later clarified that it does not have the power to set mandatory vaccination policies for its venues across the country, and that using its app was just one of the ways it is considering enhancing safety at future events).
If apps help the return of events and other gatherings, it could add to a fear of exclusion that will lead to more vaccinations, Caplan said. Soon after mass vaccinations, people will start to self-segregate; bubbles will expand to include other friends who’ve been vaccinated, he said.
Even the kind of visibility and tracking an app provides could be crucial in fighting resistance to a vaccine.
We need to have the Beanie Baby for health, something that people would want to have [to] show that they protected themselves and their family...”
A Smokey Bear for vaccines?
A lot of vaccine distribution will be on the state level. But a federal public awareness campaign, or new mascot, may be called for to increase participation, Ratzan said. He cites two popular long-running and successful examples: Smokey Bear and the “Click It or Ticket” pro-seatbelt campaign.
“You can’t just leave it up to the states,” he said. “Smokey Bear is 75 years old, and is [still] an icon people know.”
So far, no one has stepped forward to propose an Andy the Antibody yet, but Ratzan said he hopes it happens soon. Even if it’s not a government-issued sci-fi barcode, something like a Livestrong bracelet might become popular as a fashionable immuno-brag. In Afghanistan, for instance, a traditional charm bracelet called the Immunity Charm has been used to counter historically low vaccination and high infant mortality rates.
“I joked that we need to have the Beanie Baby for health, something that people would want to have [to] show that they protected themselves and their family,” Ratzan said. “If we’re able to get a movement going, that would be really positive. We need to have clever people who are willing to do this in a society that’s been very polarized in order to move forward.”