As access to vaccines increases, the popular press reports waning demand for vaccines in rural residents and points to vaccine hesitancy. But there may be other reasons why doses distributed to rural areas remain unclaimed.

Disagreements among biomedical experts regarding whether the scientific evidence supports delaying the second shot of Covid-19 vaccines or pausing the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines because of very rare side effects bring to the fore missing aspects in exhortations to trust biomedical experts.

If the United States is to achieve herd immunity, at least 75-85% of the population will need to be vaccinated, yet there are many different kinds of barriers to overcome. Some Americans are reluctant or wish to wait, because they distrust government or the safety of the vaccines or believe in wides...

Fewer vaccines are going to Black people. While it’s easy to fall back on vaccine hesitancy as an excuse, systemic racism is to blame.

Vaccine hesitancy is a concern around the world, but negative attitudes among Muslims in particular toward some coronavirus vaccines have been the focus of attention in the media. Some scholars in Asia recently issued fatwa against the Chinese Covid-19 vaccine. Media coverage has characterized the Muslim world as a hotspot for vaccine hesitancy, but experts point out biases in this coverage and explain the underlying reasons.

Many people are deeply interested in the political process and awash in relevant information., but nevertheless often grossly misinformed, holding confident but unfounded opinions at odds with widely accessible evidence The recent riot at Capitol Hill is just one illustration–albeit a horrifying one–of such misinformation and its potential consequences. The anti-vaccine movement is another example.