Poll finds vaccination drive hitting a roadblock

The American public’s willingness to get a COVID vaccine is reaching a saturation point, a new national poll suggests, one more indication that achieving widespread immunity in the United States is increasingly challenging.

Only 9 percent of respondents said they hadn’t gotten the shot but intended to do so, according to the survey, published in the April edition of the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Vaccine Monitor. And with federal authorization of the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents ages 12-15 expected imminently, the eagerness of parents to let their children be vaccinated also is limited, the poll found.

Overall, slightly more than half of those surveyed said they’d gotten at least one dose of the vaccine, a finding that matches data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We’re in a new stage of talking about vaccine demand,” said Mollyann Brodie, executive vice president of Kaiser’s Public Opinion and Survey Research Program. “There’s not going to be a single strategy to increase demand across everyone who is left. There will be have to be a lot of individually targeted efforts.”

With a growing number of scientists and public health experts concluding the country likely won’t reach herd immunity, the Biden administration has stepped up efforts to reach those who are still hesitant. On Tuesday, the administration announced steps to encourage more pop-up and mobile vaccine clinics and to distribute shots to primary care doctors and pediatricians as well as local pharmacies.

The survey also showed that confidence in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine had suffered a significant blow after the 10-day pause in dispensing it while authorities examined rare incidents of life-threatening blood clots in people who had taken it.

While 69 percent of people said they had confidence in the safety of the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, only 46 percent felt confident about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Among adults who haven’t been vaccinated, 1 in 5 said the news about the Johnson & Johnson shot had prompted them to change their minds about getting a COVID-19 vaccine.

The survey did show some progress among Republicans, who’ve been among the firmest holdouts. Among that group, 55 percent said they had gotten a shot or intended to do so, up from 46 percent in March. The percentage who will “definitely not” get the vaccine is shrinking as well, down to 20 percent from 29 percent in March.

The results were based on telephone surveys of a nationally representative sample of 2,097 adults April 15-29.