The agonizingly slow upward creep of the U.S. COVID vaccination rate, coupled with the emergence of the Omicron variant, has observers speaking in tones of gloom. What is wrong with people who refuse to get the shots? Some point to diseases such as smallpox and polio as evidence of a less-broken time when people trusted authorities and believed more strongly in science. But as historians of medicine, we find the despair about vaccine hesitancy misplaced.
By historical standards, the U.S. COVID-19 vaccination campaign has already been an astonishing success. In the past, fearsome diseases have been brought to heel even in the face of vaccine resistance, and with lower vaccination rates than public health officials had hoped to achieve. Moreover, vaccines alone have rarely curtailed or eliminated infectious diseases. Other measures, such as faster and more-accessible testing, and support for infected individuals who must quarantine, are also essential.
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Anti-inoculation activism in this country is older than both vaccination and the country itself. The first inoculation campaigns in America date to the early 18th century, when members of the political and social elite began to promote variolation—the term “vaccination” didn’t exist yet—against smallpox. Although smallpox was a widespread and frightening disease, many resisted variolation, which meant inserting material from a smallpox sufferer’s pustules into a healthy person’s skin. It was risky. The death rate from the procedure ranged from one to five in a 100, better than the dismal 25-30% mortality rate among those who contracted smallpox naturally, but still dangerous enough to spur opposition.
Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, an inoculation proponent, was threatened with hanging, and minister-physician Cotton Mather’s house was unsuccessfully firebombed by an irate critic. Many colonies passed laws prohibiting the procedure, fearing smallpox could be spread by those who had not…
Source : time
