Polls show increasing trust in vaccine
Growth in confidence slow, steady recently
Confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine is growing, a USA TODAY analysis of dozens of polls and scientific papers shows.
Surveys in recent weeks show close to 60% of respondents saying they’d get the COVID-19 vaccine, up from a low of 1 in 2 Americans polled in September.
A Pew Research Center survey of 12,648 Americans in late November showed 60% said they’d get the vaccine if it were available today, up from 51% polled in September. The Kaiser Family Foundation noted a similar increase, with 71% of the 1,676 surveyed indicating they’d accept a COVID-19 vaccine, up from 63% in September.
USA TODAY’s analysis drew on methods used by Duke University and Florida State University researchers and by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to summarize vaccine polling.
It’s unknown what percentage of the population needs to get the vaccine before COVID-19 can be wiped out. But the increased willingness to receive the vaccine marks a reversal of earlier trends and comes at a crucial time in the pandemic that has claimed more than 350,000 lives in the United States. The country is now being battered by a third wave of surging infections, while the administration of vaccines has gone slower than planned in recent weeks.
Distrust of the COVID-19 vaccine has been visible in pockets across the country, from nursing home workers in Ohio to Indigenous communities in Montana to college students in Texas.
From March through late fall, trust in the vaccine declined steadily, according to dozens of surveys of Americans asked whether they’d get the vaccine when it became available.
A running Morning Consult poll of 2,200 adults found 72% of those surveyed in April would accept the vaccine. As of Oct. 10, that number dropped to about 48% willing to get vaccinated. A CNN/SSRS poll found a similar trend – of the about 1,200 people polled, 66% said in May that they’d get the vaccine; by October, just 51% indicated they’d get it.
A review published last week in the journal Vaccines looked at 126 scientific studies and surveys of popular opinion about the COVID-19 vaccine and found a decreasing trend in vaccine acceptance since March. The researchers found that overall confidence in the vaccine fell, on average, from more than 70% of people polled in March indicating they’d get a vaccine to just 50% in October.
Cheryl Lin, an author of the review and co-director of the Policy and Or
ganizational Management Program at Duke University, said the decline in vaccine acceptance as the coronavirus spread was almost counterintuitive.
“Willingness to get vaccinated did not increase with growing case numbers or death total,” Lin said. “When people first realized the seriousness of the outbreak and personally experienced the pandemic, acceptance was high. Then, six months later, vaccine acceptance dropped to below 50%.”
Many of the surveys Lin studied highlighted communities that are especially distrustful of the COVID-19 vaccine. Polls from Pew Research Center, Gallup and Economist/YouGov have shown Republicans as less ac
“There’s an urgent need for a national campaign ...” Cheryl Lin
An author of the review and co-director of the Policy and Organizational Management Program program at Duke University
cepting of the vaccine than Democrats. And surveys published in the journals Annals of Internal Medicine and Vaccine have found that Black respondents were less likely to say they’d get the vaccine.
“Unfortunately, health disparities are likely to persist if we don’t make a strong effort to target those groups with customized communication campaigns and more accessible vaccine delivery,” Lin said. “There’s an urgent need for a national campaign, in addition to political figures or celebrities getting the shot in front of the cameras, and really targeting specific groups.”