When politics collides with public health: COVID-19 vaccine country of origin and vaccination acceptance in Brazil

Gramacho, Wladimir; Turgeon, Mathieu

doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2021.03.080

Cited by 88 publications

(111 citation statements)

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“…In Brazil, where President Jair Bolsonaro has systematically minimized the seriousness of the virus and its illness (Barberia and Gómez, 2020;Ortega and Orsini, 2020), Calvo and Ventura (2021) show that Bolsonaro voters are more optimistic about the health risks and job insecurity associated with the COVID-19 pandemic when compared to those who voted for Fernando Haddad (PT) in the second round of the 2018 presidential election. Furthermore, a study looking at vaccination acceptance finds that Bolsonaro supporters are less likely to vaccinate than those who do not support him (Gramacho and Turgeon, 2021), in line with Bolsonaro's expressed skepticism about vaccination as a means to combat the pandemic. Consequently, we expect Brazilians supportive of the president to also be less knowledge about COVID-19 when compared to those who disapprove of him.…”

Section: Learning About Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 95%

Political Preferences, Knowledge, and Misinformation About COVID-19: The Case of Brazil

et al. 2021

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The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a vast research agenda focusing on how citizens acquire knowledge about the virus and the health expert guidelines to protect themselves and their close ones against it. While many countries and regions have been accounted for, there still remains a substantial gap with respect to public opinion about the virus in Latin America, most notably in Brazil, which currently has the second highest in number of fatalities in the world. In this article, we employ a national survey of Brazilians (n = 2,771) to measure and explain knowledge and misinformation about the coronavirus and its illness, COVID-19. Our focus concerns the role of political preferences in a context of high elite polarization with a sitting government that has systematically downplayed the risks associated with the coronavirus and its illness. Our findings are clear: political preferences play a substantial role in explaining differences in knowledge about the coronavirus and COVID-19, more than conventional determinants of learning like motivation, ability, and opportunities. Specifically, we find that supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro—an avid science and COVID-19 denier—know significantly less about the coronavirus and its illness and are more likely to believe in a conspiracy theory that claims that the coronavirus was purposefully created in a Chinese laboratory to promote China's economic power, when compared to Brazilians who are less supportive of him and his government. Our findings carry important implications for how Brazilians take informational cues from political elites in that—even in a major event like a global pandemic—supporters of the president are as likely as ever to “follow their leader” and deny expert-backed scientific evidence.

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Section: Learning About Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 95%

Political Preferences, Knowledge, and Misinformation About COVID-19: The Case of Brazil

et al. 2021

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“…Vaccine acceptance in Brazil is generally higher than in other countries because of the country's renowned immunization programs and campaigns before the pandemic. Despite the fact that president Jair Bolsonaro discredited the vaccination campaign, which had an impact on vaccination acceptance, a recent study has shown that only 10% of the Brazilian population showed reluctance to receive a COVID vaccine versus up to 40% in other countries [81]. People at lesser risk of severe cases of COVID-19 and supporters of political leaders who have minimized the effect of the pandemic, such as Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, were less inclined to support vaccination.…”

Section: Social and Political Disruption Of Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People at lesser risk of severe cases of COVID-19 and supporters of political leaders who have minimized the effect of the pandemic, such as Donald Trump or Jair Bolsonaro, were less inclined to support vaccination. Another factor in vaccine hesitancy identified was the provenance of the vaccine [81]. The same study has shown that vaccines produced in China or Russia were less likely to be accepted by the Brazilian population: the acceptance decreased by 21.3% for the "Chinese vaccine" and by 15.7% for the "Russian vaccine", even though the "Chinese vaccine" is produced in Butantan Institute, Brazil.…”

Section: Social and Political Disruption Of Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The same study has shown that vaccines produced in China or Russia were less likely to be accepted by the Brazilian population: the acceptance decreased by 21.3% for the "Chinese vaccine" and by 15.7% for the "Russian vaccine", even though the "Chinese vaccine" is produced in Butantan Institute, Brazil. This was fueled by Bolsonaro, who stated in October 2020 that Brazil would not purchase vaccines from China because it was "not safe because of its origin" and cancelled the order of 46 million CoronaVac Vaccine, which was later restored [81]. He also stated that he would refuse to be vaccinated with the United States Pfizer vaccine, as the contract mentioned the producer would not be held responsible for any adverse effects.…”

Section: Social and Political Disruption Of Covid-19mentioning

confidence: 99%

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The COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy in Brazil—A Case Study

et al. 2021

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Brazil is among the countries which have faced two devastating infection waves of COVID-19 in the past year. Despite the fact the country has one of the world’s leading immunization programs, Brazil only slowly established a national COVID-19 vaccination strategy and campaign. This case study is based on an integrative review of primary and secondary literature sources. Different search strategies on Medline and Google Scholar were performed for the case presentation, for the management and outcome of the COVID-19 outbreak and for the state of the COVID-19 vaccination program. Official documents from the Brazilian Ministry of Health, the website of the World Health Organization and pharmaceutical companies were also reviewed. Searches were limited to English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. This article describes the Brazilian COVID-19 vaccination campaign and the drivers and barriers to its implementation; and evaluates further investigations needed to have a conclusive overview over the constantly evolving situation. Healthcare inequalities, which were widened during the pandemic, a lack of coordination at the federal level, the absence of federal government support for scientific research and the lack of endorsement and commitment to the mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic set the country’s COVID-19 vaccination campaign off to a challenging start. However, Brazil had a well-developed primary care system and national vaccination program prior to the pandemic, which are both important facilitators. At the time of writing, six vaccines are currently available in the country, and the program is advancing. The scientific community needs to continue to investigate the country’s vaccination strategy and its implementation to make sure that maximum effort is undertaken for the health of the Brazilian population.

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“…Previous studies on the determinants of vaccine acceptance have largely neglected the role of country of origin (13,14), restricted to single-country studies (13,(17)(18)(19), and/or drawn observational evidence by using direct survey questions about vaccine acceptance in general (14) without employing experimental methods to distinguish between different types of vaccines. Consequently, we lack a complete examination that captures which particular types of COVID-19 vaccines citizens are more willing to accept, and a specific assessment of how the nation of vaccine development biases vaccine acceptance.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Nation of Vaccine Development Influences Vaccine Acceptance

Barceló¹,

Sheen²,

Tung³

et al. 2021

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What types of vaccines are citizens most likely to accept? We administered a conjoint experiment requesting 15,000 adult citizens across 14 countries from around the world to assess 450,000 profiles of vaccines that randomly varied on seven attributes. Beyond vaccine fundamentals such as efficacy rate, number of doses, and duration of the protection, we find that citizens systematically favor vaccines developed and produced in their own country of residence. These results indicate that a sociological form of vaccine nationalism shapes vaccine acceptance. The extent of preference in favor of vaccines developed and produced within the national borders is particularly large among citizens who identify more strongly with their nation, suggesting nationalism plays a role in explaining the bias in favor of vaccines developed and produced locally. This public opinion bias on vaccine preferences has significant theoretical and practical implications.

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When politics collides with public health: COVID-19 vaccine country of origin and vaccination acceptance in Brazil

Cited by 88 publications

References 9 publications

Political Preferences, Knowledge, and Misinformation About COVID-19: The Case of Brazil

Political Preferences, Knowledge, and Misinformation About COVID-19: The Case of Brazil

The COVID-19 Vaccination Strategy in Brazil—A Case Study

The Nation of Vaccine Development Influences Vaccine Acceptance

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