Editorial: How about a beer with that vaccine shot?

Street dogs sleep at a market as shops remain closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in Dharmsala, India. India's Government is facing calls for a strict lockdown. Photo / AP

Editorial

EDITORIAL

With reports of stubborn-levels of vaccine hesitancy overseas, New Zealand may have to get creative to coax the unwilling into getting a jab.

What might work? Pineapple lumps? A steak and cheese pie? A pint of Speight's?

It sounds silly, but New Jersey and Connecticut in the United States have resorted to offering free beer as a reward for holdouts to take their medicine.

Businesses have joined in with offers to workers such as cash, credit and time off.

AP noted that other lures included savings bonds, a chance to win an all-terrain vehicle, free haircuts and popcorn, and marijuana "joints for jabs".

Krispy Kreme in the US has offered a free doughnut a day for the rest of the year to anyone with proof of their Covid-19 vaccination.

The prospect of a brew with your shot comes as America's vaccination rate is declining and achieving herd immunity looks out of reach.

Health experts worry that pockets of low vaccination could allow the virus to keep churning out troublesome variants.

Vaccine hesitancy has been particularly noticeable among conservatives, polls and data show. The 21 states with the highest levels of people vaccinated with at least one dose were all won by Democrat Joe Biden last year.

Knowing people in some countries are ignoring available vaccines adds to frustration the US and elsewhere about having to wait for the doses. It's happening as India is suffering through a devastating coronavirus surge.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian predicted that coronavirus would be a problem until 2024 unless vaccine production was ramped up. "If we continue at this pace then there will not be global immunity until 2024. There will be no immunity against Covid-19 unless it is global immunity."

New Zealand, Australia and much of Asia have been behind on vaccination. The one advantage in being slow is we can read research into real-world data on how rollouts elsewhere have gone.

A study on Israel's rollout in the Lancet on Thursday showed that two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine were more than 95 per cent effective against infection, hospitalisation and death.

A week after the second dose, the vaccine provided 95.3 per cent protection against infection, 96.7 per cent protection against death, a 97 per cent shield against symptomatic infection and a 97.2 per cent guard against hospitalisation.

Hopefully, hesitancy will not be such a problem in New Zealand, even though we are not immune to disinformation about the vaccines.

Anyone with an inkling of how bad Covid-19 has been out in the world will not require much persuading. Anyone with a healthy fear of the various variants will line up. Anyone with elderly parents will be urging them to get it. Anyone who is itching to travel will be keen.

At a practical level, people are also used to being offered flu jabs at their GP clinic or workplace. It shouldn't be daunting. The usual, short-term side-effects are soreness at the injection area and some tiredness.

Even for those who don't feel personally interested in vaccination right now, it clearly helps other people. We had to treat the coronavirus as a common enemy last year, now the vaccines are a common solution.