Opinion: What South Korea Can Teach Us About Vaccine Hesitancy

In early September, officials in South Korea announced an ambitious plan to vaccinate 30 million people against the flu — 10 million more than last year, an increase aimed at keeping down rates of the flu while the country battled the coronavirus.

But as The Times reported last week, the internet soon got in the way. As the vaccine was distributed, a few logistical problems popped up, and South Koreans began circulating grave stories online — pictures of vaccine boxes that looked like they had been stored unsafely, reports of vaccine contaminated with mysterious white particles.

Then things got more serious. A 17-year-old died after getting the vaccine. Stories of more deaths began to pour in. “By Oct. 22, the reported death count had reached 28 and it was rising by the day,” The Times reported. “Singapore briefly suspended the use of a South Korean vaccine after the deaths were reported.”

Health officials were confident that the vaccine was safe, and they eventually determined that the deaths were coincidental; people die every day from a wide variety of causes, so it’s not surprising that among millions of people receiving vaccinations, some would die soon afterward for unrelated reasons. But online, the fear would not bend to rational explanation.

As the government took the time to thoroughly investigate the cases, “anxiety grew, trust fell and the vaccination program suffered,” Dr. Ki Mo-ran, an epidemiologist, told The Times. ....

South Korea’s public health officials have been praised for the transparent way they investigated and shut down misinformation about the flu vaccine, but rates of vaccination remain low — only 19 million people have gotten the flu shot, far short of the goal of 30 million. Still, Bruce Gellin, the president of global immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, told me that Americans should allow scientists, rather than politicians, to take the lead in communicating about vaccines, as the Koreans did. ...

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