Does Policy Uncertainty Boost Vaccine Hesitancy? Political Controversy, the FDA, and COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Fall 2020

CONTEXT: Vaccine hesitancy is associated with political and institutional distrust, but there is little research on how people's trust responds to political events. The authors revisit the fall of 2020, when evaluation of new COVID-19 vaccines collided with an impending US national election. Drawing on a "political Bayesian" perspective, the authors assess abrupt changes in attention to political events and test hypotheses on how subpopulation responses may differ in accordance with partisanship, educational attainment, and race/ethnicity. METHODS: The authors analyze daily changes in US news reporting and social media use in 2020, combined with detailed analysis of two-large scale surveys fielded at the time, focusing on questions of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and safety concerns about COVID-19 vaccines. FINDINGS: Vaccine hesitancy spiked in the United States from late August to early October 2020. The authors identify several plausible triggers for this spike, all pertaining to the Food and Drug Administration and electoral politics. Heightened vaccine hesitancy occurred among Democrats, Asian citizens, Black citizens, and college-educated respondents. Turbulence mainly affected those who were initially most trusting in government and vaccines. Asian American vaccine confidence recovered; that of Black Americans did not. CONCLUSIONS: Electoral politics may destabilize citizen assumptions about vaccine authorization and boost uncertainty, thereby undermining public willingness to take approved vaccines.