Ending the Pandemic Means Getting Vaccinated. But Many Oregonians Will Be Hard to Convince.

In a recent Willamette Week cover story, David Bangsberg, dean of the School of Public Health, and others discuss the resistance to vaccinations in Oregon and how that might affect the efforts to end the Covid-19 pandemic. “”We’ve not done a great job in the U.S. at large at getting people to take vaccines,” says Dr. David Bangsberg, founding dean of the joint Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University School of Public Health. “Some communities here in Oregon, the vaccination rate is down to the 30-to-40-percent range. After vaccination levels dropped to that level, we saw several measles outbreaks. The historical precedent suggests [acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine] will be a challenge.” (photo by Wesley Lapointe)