Understanding the phases of vaccine hesitancy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Vaccine hesitancy is an important feature of every vaccination and COVID-19 vaccination is not an exception. During the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine hesitancy has exhibited different phases and has shown both temporal and spatial variation in these phases. This has likely arisen due to varied socio-behavioural characteristics of humans and their response towards COVID 19 pandemic and its vaccination strategies. This commentary highlights that there are multiple phases of vaccine hesitancy: Vaccine Eagerness, Vaccine Ignorance, Vaccine Resistance, Vaccine Confidence, Vaccine Complacency and Vaccine Apathy. Though the phases seem to be sequential, they may co-exist at the same time in different regions and at different times in the same region. This may be attributed to several factors influencing the phases of vaccine hesitancy. The complexities of the societal reactions need to be understood in full to be addressed better. There is a dire need of different strategies of communication to deal with the various nuances of all of the phases. To address of vaccine hesitancy, an understanding of the societal reactions leading to various phases of vaccine hesitancy is of utmost importance.

A cross sectional study exploring determinants for vaccine awareness, belief and hesitancy among health care professionals regarding Covid-19 vaccine, findings from a teaching hospital based in coal capital of India.

Background: India intends to start its 1st dose of vaccination against Covid-19 on January 16th, 2021 prioritizing its frontline health care professionals with either of the two vaccines-Covaxin or Covishield. Whenever a new vaccine is launched, it is marred with controversy and myths. To understand the doubts and concerns better, this study was conducted on health care professionals working in a tertiary care hospital. Materials and Methods: Willing respondents, who are working in the institute, were administered the questionnaire asking their views on knowledge, beliefs, and reasons for hesitancy regarding Covid-19 immunization. A Likert scale was used to quantify the responses regarding participants' knowledge, beliefs, and hesitancies regarding immunization with the available vaccines. Data were analyzed using MS office Excel sheets and JASP software was used to analyze the data thus obtained. Results: Out of 122 complete responses, we had 73 (60%) doctors, while 30 (24%) were nursing staff, the rest comprised of other health care workers, such as housekeeping staff, janitorial, etc., 66 (54%) respondents were unaware, while 25 (20%) respondents had hesitancy and 23 (18%) were having extremely negative views regarding vaccination. Some of the variables, such as age, role, marital status, gender, etc., were found to be possibly associated with these scores. Conclusion: Issues like concerns over vaccine safety, efficacy, reliability, etc., are deterrents for individuals and whole programme and vaccination drive across the nation. Time and again it has been seen that despite the vaccines' contribution in breaking the transmission, concerns are making people either hesitant or unmotivated to get the vaccines. More dialogues from the authorities regarding the issues of concern may pave the way for more motivation to accept vaccination and increase the vaccination coverage.

Mapping fear among doctors manning screening clinics for COVID19. Results from cloud based survey in Eastern parts of India.

BACKGROUND: As the number of cases of COVID19 from novel corona virus 2019 rises so are the number of deaths ensuing from it. Doctors have been in front in these calamitous times across the world. India has less number of doctors so doctors are overwhelmed with more number of patients to cater. Thereby they are also fearing that they will be exposed much as they often work in limited resource settings. METHODS: An on line survey was to include doctors from eastern states in India for measuring the reasons of their fear and suggest possible solutions based on the results achieved thus. After IEC clearance a semi-structured anonymous questionnaire was sent on google forms as links on known to doctors, working in screening OPDs or flu clinics especially for COVID-19. RESULTS: Out of 59 Doctors majority were provided with sanitizers for practicing hand hygiene. Gloves were provided everywhere but masks particularly N95 and Triple Layer surgical masks were not there for all. Training was not given universally. Fear was dependent on age in our sample. CONCLUSION: Training and strict adherence to infection control measures along with resources can help in removing the fear.