COVID-19 Vaccination: The Mainspring of Challenges and the Seed of Remonstrance

Abstract

As of March 2020, the time when the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) became a pandemic, our existence has been threatened and the lives of millions have been claimed. With this ongoing global issue, vaccines are considered of paramount importance in curtailing the outbreak and probably a prime gamble to bring us back to ‘ordinary life’. To date, more than 200 vaccine candidates have been produced, many of which were approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use, with the research and discovery phase of their production process passed over. Capering such a chief practice in COVID-19 vaccine development, and manufacturing vaccines at an unprecedented speed brought many challenges into play and raised COVID-19 vaccine remonstrance. In this review, we highlight relevant challenges to global COVID-19 vaccine development, dissemination, and deployment, particularly at the level of large-scale production and distribution. We also delineate public perception on COVID-19 vaccination and outline the main facets affecting people’s willingness to get vaccinated.

COVID-19 Vaccination Acceptance among Healthcare Workers and General Population at the Very Beginning of the National Vaccination Program in Poland: A Cross-Sectional, Exploratory Study

“…The rest of the population is uninformed about vaccination safety and efficacy and vulnerable to anti-vaccine content that is widely available. In this context, access to information on vaccination, the use of various communication channels and forms of dialogue should be the key elements of the vaccination campaign [1,52,53], more so with a new mutation of SARS-CoV-2, 'omicron', becoming increasingly dangerous [54].…”

“…Creating COVID-19 vaccines within less than 1 year of the outbreak of the pandemic seems to be one of the most spectacular technological achievements in medicine [1]. However, not only in Poland, vivid activity by anti-vaccination movements has been observed in recent years, which is particularly intense on the internet and social media [2].…”

Public Awareness and Sentiment toward COVID-19 Vaccination in South Korea: Findings from Big Data Analytics

“…In the United Kingdom, citizens’ misunderstanding of herd immunity, fear of the unexpected, including the unknown side effects, and rumors of the vaccines being manipulated for population control have contributed to the rise of vaccine hesitancy [ 5 ]. Health risks and apprehension about the side effects such as disease reactivation, a lack of trust in policy makers, and misunderstanding of the vaccines’ effectiveness increase vaccine hesitancy which, along with conspiracy beliefs, undermines the effort to achieve herd immunity in the nations around the world [ 6 , 7 ].…”

Global pattern and determinants of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine coverage and progression: a global ecological study

“… 21 The same phenomenon can been seen in the 2019-H1N1 influenza outbreak that developing countries identified the lack of equity in how developed countries were securing access to the vaccine 22 . Poor countries also have great difficulty in setting up cold chain systems to serve vaccines, to the extent that they cannot guarantee vaccination of their people 23 . If this phenomenon is not taken seriously, there is no doubt that history will repeat itself the next time when a new epidemic breaks out.…”