Using Star Wars to Explain How Vaccines work... A Vaxx Standby Idea... and the VaxxPot Lottery to Inoculate Small Business from Ruin

Very few people really understand how vaccines work. Do you?

Which, if any, of these is/are correct? Vaccines work by:

a)     giving you a controlled dose of the live virus and when you get over being sick, you have immunity

b)    using fragments of a virus not big enough to give you the disease, but enough to trigger an immune response in your body 

c)     using a dead or weakened form of the virus to trigger your body into making antibodies

d)    sending a kind instructions to your cells to make small parts of the virus to trigger your body into making antibodies

e)    The vaccine carries antibodies that fight the virus

Scroll down to the bottom to see the answer. 

If we don’t understand how vaccines really work, it is hard to know what’s true or not. It leads to uncertainty and helps feed “vaccine hesitancy.” Medical experts, scientists, and academics have tried to explain how vaccines work. But unless you are a vaccinologist or epidemiologist, you may get lost in the jargon. The best way to explain very complicated things—whether medical, financial, environmental or any field of deep expertise—is to translate them into an analogy. Choose something your audience already understands and plug the new explanation into that frame of reference. 

Here’s my downloadable version of that: An Unofficial Star Wars Explanation of How Different Vaccines Work. See if it helps you explain it to others.

HOW WERE THE NEW VACCINES MADE SO QUICKLY?

Another source of vaccine hesitancy stems from how quickly these COVID-19 vaccines were developed.  Before this pandemic, very few people knew how long it takes, how complicated and how expensive it is to make safe, effective vaccines.  But this pandemic has brought thousands of articles highlighting this, and that information has led to a disconnect. The average time, before now, was 11 years to bring a vaccine to market. So when we can suddenly have COVID-19 vaccines in 11 months instead of 11 years, people wonder how that could be—what changed? Were any corners cut? Unless you explain how vaccine makers could accelerate the whole process, it will lead to some understandable hesitancy.

Here is my downloadable version of explaining How COVID-19 Vaccines Were Developed So Quickly.

VAXX STANDBY TO AVOID WASTED DOSES ON NO-SHOWS

The vaccines come in bottles or vials containing more than one dose. Some of the vaccines must be kept in a deep-freeze condition until ready to be injected. When that bottle is thawed and ready for use, it is opened. But like a perishable food, it will spoil if not used soon. So if there are say, 7 vaccination doses in one bottle, and by the end of the day there are several still left in the bottle, the health care professional has a choice: find some random person who wants a vaccination right then, or throw the doses away. What a terrible waist of a miraculous and precious life saver.  But we could fix this easily. We already have a model for it most of us have used at some point at the airport. Vaxx Standby. 

Just as you sign up to get a seat on a fully-booked plane in the event there is a no-show, why not create a simple online platform as a kind of standby waiting list for those who are not top-priority but who want a vaccination?  

Imagine then how frustrating to hear any doses would be tossed because someone didn’t show up! Vaxx Standby is the solution. Instead of dumping the end-of-day leftover doses in the opened vial, the pharmacist or nurse checks the standby list and you’re up! You get a text and hop on over to the clinic to get your standby vaccine.

No Sensitive Personal Data Needed

There is no need for any sensitive, personal information such as medical history or social security number, thereby making it a safe and easy-to-use. Just an email address and number to send a text. You would then bring any IDs or documents with you.

Just Your County, Town or City Location

The system needs to be sortable by location. It makes no sense to get a call in Boston that a does is ready for you now in Seattle.

Of course, it could also be a loyalty program perk. If you sign up to be a customer of a chain such as Safeway Pharmacy, Giant Pharmacy, or CVS, you can sign up for standby.

This way you avoid all tragically wasted vaccine doses and make lucky standby winners very happy.Imagine that you used the online calculator and find you are at the end of a very long queue.

Imagine then how frustrating to hear any doses would be tossed because someone didn’t show up! Vaxx Standby is the solution. Instead of dumping the end-of-day leftover doses in the opened vial, the pharmacist or nurse checks the standby list and you’re up! You get a text and hop on over to the clinic to get your standby vaccine

No Sensitive Personal Data Needed

There is no need for any sensitive, personal information such as medical history or social security number, thereby making it a safe and easy-to-use. Just an email address and number to send a text. You would then bring any IDs or documents with you.

Just Your County, Town or City Location

The system needs to be sortable by location. It makes no sense to get a call in Boston that a does is ready for you now in Seattle.

Of course, it could also be a loyalty program perk. If you sign up to be a customer of a chain such as Safeway Pharmacy, Giant Pharmacy, or CVS, you can sign up for standby.

This way you avoid all tragically wasted vaccine doses and make lucky standby winners very happy.

A VAXXPOT LOTTERY to VACCINATE LOCAL SMALL BUSINESSES FROM FINANCIAL PANDEMIC

We know from behavioral science studies that lotteries work. People always believe, no matter how much they understand odds and probabilities, that once they hold a ticket, they have an edge (optimism bias). They work because people imagine a big prize for a modest ticket price—an asymmetrical reward.  This has been tested in many different kinds of situations, including encouraging people to take their meds on time. Lotteries work.

Now imagine that when you come in for your vaccination, you get a special lottery ticket available only for people who get vaccinated. Perhaps a weekly VaxxPot. And the payout? A substantial sum of money in the form of vouchers that can only be used in local, small businesses and restaurants. A healthy relationship—vaccinated citizens who get cash to spend in their hometown businesses to vaccinate them from the financial impact of the pandemic.

ANSWER TO VACCINE QUIZ:

Mark any or all that are correct. Vaccines work by:

a)     giving you a controlled dose of the live virus and when you get over being sick, you have immunity INCORRECT

b)    using fragments of a virus not big enough to give you the disease, but enough to trigger an immune response in your body  CORRECT

c)     using a dead or weakened form of the virus to trigger your body into making antibodies CORRECT

d)    sending a kind instructions to your cells to make small parts of the virus to trigger your body into making antibodies CORRECT (mRNA vaccines)

e)    The vaccine carries antibodies that fight the virus INCORRECT