As the U.S. grapples with the effort to distribute massive quantities of vaccine, the fundamental challenge is the more delicate task of persuading tens of millions of others it is safe to take it. A message of safety and clear benefit must overcome reasonable concerns sparked by the speed and trailblazing nature of the vaccine development effort.

That message is grounded in the results of those trials. They were structured to test the vaccines in enough people that, were some safety issue to arise, it would stand out in the data. Instead, the independent studies of both vaccines showed no significant safety concerns and found the two were more than 90% effective in preventing severe disease.

In layman’s terms: amazingly good.

Some people on the fence about taking the vaccine might be convinced to get it by the shocking statistic that nearly one in every 800 Americans has already died from COVID-19 — in less than a year. In comparison, the risks of an adverse reaction to a vaccine are vanishingly small.

What most scientists fail to understand, behavioral health experts say, is that most people do not think like scientists.

“If you come at someone with a bunch of data, facts and figures, people are just not going to be able to process that,” said Dr. Robert Bednarczyk, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta. “Scientists rely on data. It’s what we do. But living in a world of numbers is not sufficient. It can make other people’s eyes gloss over.”

Read the full article about building trust in the COVID-19 vaccine by Sabin Russell at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.