Taking Your Chances

"Almost half of [the vaccine-hesitant, 46 percent] live in Ontario and well over half of them [59 percent] are women. A quarter were born outside Canada. Their average age is 42 and the plurality are between 30 and 44 years old."

"If they were voting in a federal election today, 35 percent would vote Liberal, 25 percent Conservative, 17 percent NDP, nine percent Green -- pretty similar to overall voting intentions for the entire population."

Abacus Data chair Bruce Anderson

Vincent Rochester, 85, of Voorhees N.J., receives a COVID-19 vaccine at the Philadelphia VA Medical Center. “Don’t be nervous, do what is necessary and get your shot,” Rochester said.TYGER WILLIAMS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Male American radio talk show hosts have made news recently, beyond their outspoken criticism of vaccinations and government and public health officials who energetically promote COVID-19 inoculation for the entire population. A number of these naysayers vexing authorities have themselves contracted COVID, the virus they formerly categorized as a harmless cold or flu whose presence authorities have blown out of all proportion in a designed effort to frighten people into permitting government to take control of their lives.

On August 4, 65-year-old Dick Farrel called COVID[19 a "scamdemic". Then 60-year-old Ted Tucker spoke similarly disparagingly of the U.S. government efforts in persuading people to become vaccinated against the coronavirus, followed by 91 year-old Jimmy DeYoung Sr. Finally, nationally syndicated Nashville, Tennessee-based Paul Valentine, age 51, died of COVID, and then also did Florida's Marc Bernier. What they all had in common was the profile of an older male COVID skeptic.

In a move to better understand who and what kind of individual represents the majority of Canadian anti-vaxxers, people who hurl insults at political leaders currently canvassing for national votes in Canada's 44th contentious federal election, Abacus Data set out to look for numbers. In an interview, Bruce Anderson of Abacus pointed out that of Canada's 29.5 million population, seven percent (two million) profess to being hesitant over vaccinating themselves.

Six percent (1.77 million) outright refuse vaccination and will not be convinced to reconsider. 21 percent of the population in May of 2021 was seen to be vaccine-hesitant, and it would appear that these are the people who are reachable and ultimately amenable to recognizing that the fourth wave of COVID in Canada is recognized as a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Those who refuse, as well as the not-yet-convinced hesitant, give their top reason for refusing to be vaccinated as that they "hate government telling me what to do" (90 percent of refusers and 85 percent of the hesitant), "don't trust government" (83 percent of the refusers, 66 percent of the hesitant); "are reluctant to take any vaccines" (80 percent of refusers and 83 percent of the hesitant) or "try to avoid prescriptions/take natural path" (64 percent of refusers and 65 percent of the hesitant).

 

"The hesitant aren't conspiracy theorists. They aren't angry at the world. They don't think COVID-19 is a hoax", stated Anderson. "They aren't radicals of the left or the right -- 61 percent of them say they are on the centre of the spectrum. Two-thirds achieved post-secondary education." Timid they may be, said Anderson, but not stupid. And then there are the vaccine refusers: 

"Three-quarters (73 percent) of them think COVID-19 is a hoax or greatly exaggerated. Two-thirds (69 percent) don't worry at all about getting COVID-19 (only 27 percent of the hesitant feel concerned over contracting the virus.)"

Alberta has the largest percentage of vaccine refusers, at eight percent, while Ontario, Saskatchewan and Manitoba are all at seven percent, Quebec five percent and British Columbia and Atlantic Canada are four percent refusers. "Somebody could make the case that these numbers are a little bit different, one from the other. But they're not really significantly different." Since the hesitant can be convinced or pressured to become vaccinated, Canada, believes Anderson, could move into the 90 percent-plus-range of the population who are fully vaccinated, leaving about six percent refusing.

In a 30,000 person poll stretching over months, the typical vaccine-hesitant Canadian is a 42-year-old woman living in Ontario who tends to vote Liberal. Syndicated radio host Phil Valentine bet his chance of dying from COVID to be less than one percent. He lost. Mark Valentine, Phil's brother, wrote before Phil's death: "Phil would like for his listeners to know that while he has never been an 'anti-vaxxer', he regrets not being more vehemently 'Pro-Vaccine', and looks forward to being able to more vigorously advocate that position as soon as he's back on the air, which we all hope will be soon."

Before being hospitalized and just after he tested positive for COVID, Phil Valentine spoke to his listeners urging them to consider: "If I get this COVID thing, do I have a chance of dying from it?" He said he made the decision not to be vaccinated because he felt he likely would survive a bout of     COVID-19. Reality proved him wrong.

 

An ambulance passes through a crowd of people protesting COVID-19 vaccine passports and mandatory vaccinations for healthcare workers, in Vancouver, on Wednesday, September 1, 2021. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck)

"Lately, friends have been asking me about their chances of contracting Covid-19. They are also worried about the risks of dangerous side effects to the new vaccines being approved and rolled out so fast. Why should I not know something about the odds of anything happening? After all, I am a mathematician who has written extensively about the history, mathematics, and the psychology of gambling illusions.

People are asking probability questions I cannot answer. Can anyone? Relevant data involving ferociously mind-boggling people-behavior is not available, making that kind of odds question impossible to answer."

"Two centuries ago, the typical naïve gambler knew almost nothing of the mathematics of risk. They knew, though, that drawing a full house is just about a hundred times more likely to happen than drawing a straight flush and that a straight is almost twice as likely as a flush. That knowledge was part of the cultural instinct, almost devoid of mathematics."

"We now live in a world with a virus that has killed more than 400,000 people in the U.S., now averaging well-above 3,000 a day. More than 24 million Americans have tested positive. Testing positive means your health situation could be okay or somewhere between not-good and death; moreover, it means that you have a non-zero probability of long-term consequences or death. And still, so many Americans believe that because many COVID patients beat the virus, they can too."

Joseph Mazur, Psychology Today