Recently I was thinking about how many percent of Americans would get vaccinated if the coronavirus vaccine would be offered. According to a Pew Research survey, only %21 percent say that they would “definitely”, %30 say they would “probably get the vaccine. On the other hand, %24 of Americans say they would “definitely not”, %25 say they would “probably not” get the vaccine. Scientists worry that the low vaccination rate would not prevent the spread of the virus because the herd immunity would not be possible with that low participation rate. Experts estimate that %70 of the US population should have immunity to reach the herd immunity threshold.
Rational people in this survey think about the marginal benefit and marginal cost of getting the vaccination when they express their preferences. %49 of people calculated their MC as bigger than their MB. What they don’t think about is the social marginal benefit of getting vaccinated. On the contrary to the voting in the elections, getting vaccinated has more decisive results in each individual’s life. Therefore, people who don't get the vaccination will probably observe someone in their social circles to get sick and may even see their elder ones to die because of the virus. This situation would cause them to feel great regret. Hence, the group state that they would probably not get the vaccine (%25) would choose to get vaccinated if the government would be able to inform the citizens about how great their regret would be if they remain to not get vaccinated. Thus, by persuading most of the %25 percent group, it would be possible to achieve herd immunity.
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