Archived Webinar
This Zoom webinar with Sharon Kaufman from the University of California San Francisco aired July 14, 2020, as the fourth and final program in the Vaccines in the Time of COVID-19 series. Watch a recording in the player above.
Description
A broadly disseminated COVID-19 vaccine could help world populations reach a level of community immunity that would end the pandemic, but concerns over safety will undoubtedly contribute to some hesitancy to be vaccinated. In Part 4 of Vaccines in the Time of COVID-19, Sharon Kaufman (Professor Emerita and former Chair of the Department of Anthropology, History and Social Medicine at the University of California San Francisco) discusses the policy and societal conditions driving vaccine hesitancy.
Moderator: Sabrina Sholts, Curator of Biological Anthropology at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Vaccines in the Time of COVID-19
Vaccines have been heralded as the holy grail of disease prevention in the 20th and 21st centuries, reducing infant mortality in improving life expectancy worldwide. As we navigate the present COVID-19 pandemic, government officials, scientists and economists urge that the path forward hinges on development of a safe and effective vaccine — with some even suggesting that one will be available in as little as a year.
Drawing upon the expertise of research scientists, federal agencies, and anthropologists, this four-part series demystified the production of vaccines. The series began with an insider’s perspective on research approaches, followed by presentations on safety and testing, approval, the supply chain, and issues of equity and access. This series was offered in conjunction with the exhibition Outbreak: Epidemics in a Connected World at the National Museum of Natural History.
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