Covid-19 Vaccine Intent

Will We Eradicate Covid-19 With Widespread Vaccine Adoption?

Since the Coronavirus became a pandemic earlier this year, the news has been packed with predictions on when a vaccine will come out and flush with predictions on when life will get back to normal after the vaccine is widely distributed among the U.S. population.  Now that we have begun mass vaccination of the populace with health care workers and nursing home residents up for the first phase, what does the future look like, when more and more segments of the population are up for inoculation?  We asked a representative sample of US adults what their thoughts were on the vaccines that have been approved and when they will stand in line for the vaccine...

Many Americans still are skeptical about the vaccines

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor, guessed that anywhere between 75%-85% of the U.S. would need to get vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity against the disease.  Our poll which was conducted on December 22, 2020, already had 1.9% of respondents or a member of their household already having received the vaccine, and another 21.4% saying that they would get the vaccine as soon as it is available to their group.  Another 7% said that they were planning on getting the vaccine, but wanted to wait and see if there were any serious side effects from other recipients.  Based on these intenders, we are at approximately 30% of the population intending to receive the vaccine, which is far from the 75% that Fauci guessed would be needed.

The low-hanging fruit --- The Undecideds

In our poll, 47% of those surveyed said that they didn’t know yet whether they would be getting the vaccine once it is available to them, and another 22% said that they were skeptical about the vaccine and were not planning to receive it.  

In an earlier poll that we conducted on mask awareness, females tended to believe that masks were more important to stopping the spread of the disease than males and also had higher mask adoption rates than males.  However, in our latest poll on the vaccine, females only plan on getting the vaccine at a 26% rate, compared to males who plan on getting the vaccine at a 35% rate.  Over a quarter of all females surveyed are skeptical of the vaccine and don’t plan on getting it.  

When looking at age groups, the 60+ age group has the highest intent to receive the vaccine at 51% than any other age group, which is crucial to lowering hospitalizations and death rates, if our older population is most susceptible to this disease.  Still, 49% either don’t know or are skeptical of the vaccines, and are a demo primed for targeting by the medical community to get vaccinated when their group is up for inoculation.

If the US government is hoping to vaccinate 20 million individuals by the end of the year, which as of now, seems highly unlikely, they will need to ramp up education efforts and public relations around the 47% of those who haven’t made a decision yet as to whether they will get the vaccine or not.

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