US poll: Most unvaccinated Americans don’t want shots

WASHINGTON (AP) – Most Americans who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 say they are unlikely to get the shots and doubt they would work against the aggressive Delta variant despite evidence they do, according to a new poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35 percent say they probably will not, and 45 percent say they definitely will not, according to the poll. Just 3 percent say they definitely will get the shots, though another 16 percent say they probably will.

About 64 percent of unvaccinated Americans have little to no confidence the shots are effective against variants – including the Delta variant – despite evidence that they offer strong protection. In contrast, 86 percent of those who have already been vaccinated have at least some confidence that the vaccines will work.

That means “that there will be more preventable cases, more preventable hospitalizations and more preventable deaths,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University.

“We always knew some proportion of the population would be difficult to persuade no matter what the data showed, (and) a lot of people are beyond persuasion,” Adalja said.

He echoed Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky in calling the current surge “a pandemic of the unvaccinated” because nearly all hospital admissions and deaths have been among those who weren’t immunized.