Poll: Most in US who remain unvaccinated need convincing
FEWER AMERICANS are reluctant to get a COVID19 vaccine than just a few months ago, but questions about side effects and how the shots were tested still hold some back, according to a new poll that highlights the challenges at a pivotal moment in the US vaccination campaign.
Just 11 per cent of people who remain unvaccinated say they definitely will get the shot, while 34 per cent say they definitely won’t, according to the poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That leaves a large swathe of Americans in the middle who might still roll up their sleeves – including 27 per cent who say they probably will and 27 per cent who say they probably won’t – if someone credible addressed their concerns. That’s where National Institutes of Health immunologist Kizzmekia Corbett comes in.
Corbett helped lead development of the Moderna shot, and she spends hours giving plain-spoken answers to questions from Americans – especially black Americans like her – to counter misinformation about the three vaccines used in the US.
No, COVID-19 vaccines won’t cause infertility: “Whoever started that rumour, shame on you.”
No, the shots’ speedy development doesn’t mean corners were cut: “We worked our butts off for the last six years” hunting vaccines for earlier cousins of COVID-19 – a head start that made the difference, Corbett recently told the AP.
Getting as many people vaccinated as fast as possible is critical to returning the country to normal. More than 150 million people – about 58 per cent of all adults – have received at least one dose, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As that number grows, reluctance is inching down. Overall, the AP-NORC poll found about one in five American adults say they probably or definitely won’t get vaccinated, compared to about a third in January, when the shots were just rolling out.
Black Americans likewise are becoming more open to the shots, with 26 per cent now saying they definitely or probably won’t get vaccinated compared with 41 per cent in January. That’s similar to the 22 per cent of Hispanic Americans and white Americans the poll found unlikely to get vaccinated. Among Asian Americans, just nine per cent say they definitely or probably won’t get the shots.
Holdouts are from all over American society – fuelling experts’ advice that there is no one-size-fits-all vaccine message and that people need to hear from trusted sources, whether that’s scientists like Corbett or their own doctors. Adults under 45, rural Americans and Republicans are especially likely to say they will avoid vaccination, the poll found. But again, attitudes are changing: 32 per cent of Republicans now say they probably or definitely won’t get vaccinated, down from 44 per cent in January.
About three-fourths of those who say they are unlikely to get vaccinated have little to no confidence that the vaccines were properly tested, and 55 per cent are very concerned about side effects, the poll found. Even among those who say they will probably get vaccinated but have not done so yet, concerns about proper testing are elevated compared with people who have received their shots already.
In forums hosted by colleges, black pastors, doctors and even basketball great Kareem AbdulJabbar, Corbett says the best way to overcome distrust is to put the science in understandable terms for strangers, just like she does for family. Later this spring, she’s moving from the NIH to Harvard’s School of Public Health to continue both her vaccine research and that outreach to communities, the school plans to announce on Tuesday.