March 18, 2021

expert comment on psychology of response to vaccine news

A comment from Professor Stephan Lewandowsky on the psychology of decisions to suspend vaccinations.

Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair in Cognitive Psychology at the University of Bristol, said:

“The AstraZeneca vaccine is undoubtedly a very safe and highly effective vaccine. Millions and millions of doses have been administered to date and any widespread safety problem would have been detected by now. The decision by some European countries to suspend vaccinations is a precautionary measure based on a very small number of possible cases in which a vaccination was followed by a serious side effect. Exercising precaution is one possible way in which policy makers manage risk, and it is more prevalent in European countries than the U.S. or U.K., where the emphasis is more on weighing of risks and benefits. Given that the European public is generally risk averse, the suspension and careful examination of the cases by the EMA may therefore help maintain public trust in the vaccination process, even though it may also mean that more people will get sick from COVID-19 than if the vaccinations had continued. Risk management is a very difficult issue, and different member states and countries may well come to different decisions when there is not enough data to make a case clearcut, as we have seen in this case.”

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