"I got immunized differently..."

Vaccination has been, in recent years, sociologically, a phenomenon much more interesting than we would have liked. In January-February 2019, INSCOP conducted, in partnership with the University of Bucharest and the National Society of Family Medicine, a large national survey specifically about vaccination. The topic was a strong one in 2018-2019 – an anti-vaccine movement began to circulate here (although less than in other European countries), "powered by" social media. Since then, we have conducted several surveys on this issue, including during the pandemic (how else?), but we start from the 2019 study because it was conducted exactly one year before the pandemic.

To be clear, the problem is not that people have questions about vaccines and vaccination, or fears, or hesitant attitudes. The problem is that hesitancy towards vaccination/refusal of vaccination has been built, little by little, before the pandemic and then, more rapidly during it (against the backdrop of fear of anti-COVID vaccines), through the propagation, not of myths, but of absolutely ridiculous aberrations and conspiracies, mixed with fragments of discussions about the real risks involved. And the inconsistency of this mix of so-called arguments ended up convincing people, rather than being suspicious.

Of course, if we talk from a psychosociological perspective about hesitancy/refusal in the context of vaccination,

we are talking about several qualitatively stratified attitude packages depending on the subject of discussion:

Vaccination vs. mandatory vaccination;

Vaccination for so-called childhood diseases vs. types of vaccination concerning adults;

Vaccination before COVID vs. vaccination in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic;

Acceptance of old vaccination schemes, but reluctance towards new vaccines or new vaccine technologies.

The last of the four themes is a direct consequence of the one above it. One of the beliefs of many specialists was that, after the first year of restrictions caused by the COVID pandemic, the appearance of the vaccine in December 2020 would be extremely well received by the public, precisely because it would help relax the restrictions and return to a normal life. And, in the long term, the general acceptance of vaccination would have benefited from this saving context and people would have associated vaccination with it. What happened was exactly the opposite, not due to any medical disaster, but precisely because the vaccine lost the communication war with the opposing camp. Hesitancy began to affect areas of vaccination that no one previously contested. The reasons are discussed in hundreds and thousands of sociological studies published in specialized journals in the last five years. The phenomenon has literally been twisted in all directions and perhaps it wouldn't hurt to synthesize the knowledge thus accumulated. There are even data that explain how the surprising political preferences of the European public in recent years were forged during the pandemic. The pandemic was not just a medical phenomenon, but especially a social one, and this social aspect always walks hand in hand with its siblings, the economy and politics...

On January 22, 2026, INSCOP launched a complex study, in partnership with the Romanian Society for Vaccination Strategies and Health Promotion (details about the study, partnership, and findings can be found here: Inscop vaccination flu). As can be seen, the study concerns the attitudes of parents and grandparents regarding the flu vaccination of children. The flu vaccination has always had a special status: while among the most well-known (to the public) vaccines are usually those aimed at children, the flu vaccine was, before 2020-2021, the only well-known vaccine aimed at adults as well. There is also a statistical curiosity extracted from surveys regarding vaccination and related to this particular type of vaccine: it always appeared as the vaccine with which people were most in agreement, but only about 20% of respondents actually got it. Unproblematic, but ignored.

So the topic of flu vaccination for children is more than relevant, especially in the post-COVID era, when the status of vaccination supports challenges that it did not have before 2020. The methodological novelty of the study launched on January 22 lies in the fact that it is conducted on a representative sample of parents/grandparents.

In short, just over a third of the population says that they had children/grandchildren sick with the flu in the last year. About 20% consider seasonal flu very dangerous for children, and three-quarters of respondents believe that vaccination can successfully prevent the flu. The last figure is quite encouraging, considering the decline in the popularity of the vaccine after the pandemic, but let’s not forget that we are still talking about a sample of people who have children in their care. Similarly, 80% have a good opinion – of which about 40% very good – about the flu vaccination of children.

23% of the sample members declare that they are vaccinated against the flu (what did I say above?). 76% say that flu vaccination of children also protects vulnerable family members (school-aged children being more exposed to the flu than other population categories), and 75-76% would agree with flu vaccination in schools.

The survey also has a section with statements regarding which respondents were asked to express their agreement, on a scale, the respective package of statements seeking to map the perception of the utility of flu vaccination, but also the perception of the risks associated with it. One of these indicators is particularly relevant, with 47.4% of subjects agreeing with the idea that a healthy child does not need a flu vaccine. Simply put, people believe that immunity, let’s say natural, is an alternative route to vaccination, which demonstrates a misunderstanding of both immunity and vaccination. Perhaps here is a starting point to found a campaign to win back the public for the idea of vaccination, a public lost with campaigns made from the office, but insufficiently equipped with a sociological description of vaccine hesitancy.

Somewhat comically, it reminds me of a response variant from the aforementioned survey at the beginning of the article (the one from 2019), in which, when asked why they did not get vaccinated against the flu, not a few people chose the option "I have immunized myself otherwise." Guess what with...