Be Nice to Antivaxxers?

Behavioural strategist, Will Hanmer-Lloyd, makes a lot of sense, when advocating techniques for dealing with people who are likely to resist attempts to get them to agree to be vaccinated against Sars-CoV-2 (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/26/heres-how-to-tackle-the-covid-19-anti-vaxxers). I agree that calling them 'stupid' and/or making vaccination mandatory are unlikely to work. I don't think that people who are unlikely to present themselves for vaccination are a uniform group. They include, at one extreme, antivaxxer conspiracy theorists (some with vested interests in perpetuating antagonisms to vaccination) and, at the other end of the spectrum, cautious vaccine reluctants, who would prefer to 'wait and see how it goes, first'. Hanmer-Lloyd rightly points to the problem of confirmation bias (where people with entrenched views actively seek reasons for supporting it or reasons for rejecting alternatives). He also points out, that you can generate a backfire effect, when entrenched views are demonised. Hanmer-Lloyd's solution is to get GP's, and others, to carefully and respectfully explain the benefits of vaccination. He also suggests they should point to where the 'vaccine reluctant' can get information for themselves (trusting them to self-educate?). He clearly feels that persuading people to emulate their peers is likely to prove effective (people opting in rather than opting out of programmes). All very sensible but a few problems remain. They include the urgent need to get a high uptake of vaccination to achieve anything like 'herd immunity' (a 20% refusal rate would be terminal). GP's (and others) will also be very busy (with the vaccination programme and other medical issues). I am uncertain that they will have the time (or patience?) to cajole the vaccine reluctant. Finally, some of the people who are likely to resist vaccination, will simply ignore all the regular routes of information about the potential benefits (to themselves and to society). They essentially live in their own alternative electronic media-driven worlds (but are still driven to advocate their beliefs to others). I don't think that getting a 90-95% uptake of vaccination is going to be, at all, easy.