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 becoming
increasingly challenging.
اضافة اعلان
Only 9 percent of respondents said they hadn’t yet 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 is
also limited, the poll found.
Overall, slightly more than half of those surveyed said they had
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. The people still on the fence have logistical barriers,
information needs, and lots don’t yet know they are eligible. Each strategy
might move a small number of people to get vaccinated, but all together, that
could matter a lot.”
With a growing number of scientists and public health experts
concluding that it is unlikely that the country will reach the threshold of
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 the 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 safety of the Johnson & Johnson
vaccine. Among adults who have not been vaccinated, 1 in 5 said that the news
about the Johnson & Johnson shot had prompted them to change their minds
about getting a COVID-19 vaccine.
The survey did show that there had been some progress among
Republicans, who have 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 from April 15-29.
The so-called “wait and see” group — people who are seeking more
information before deciding — held stead at 15 percent from 17 percent in
March, within the margin of error. The proportion of people who said they would
get vaccinated only if required to do so by employers or schools was 6 percent compared
with 7 percent in March.
The Pfizer vaccine is expected to be authorized for children
ages 12-15 within days. Among parents who were surveyed, 3 in 10 said they
would get their children vaccinated right away, and 26 percent said they wanted
to wait to see how the vaccine was working. Those figures largely mirrored the
eagerness with which those parents themselves sought to get vaccinated.
Commensurately, 18 percent said they would do so only if a child’s
school required it, and 23 percent said they would definitely not get their
children vaccinated.
A consortium of universities that includes Harvard, Northeastern
and Rutgers has been conducting online polls during the pandemic and recently
focused on parents. The group’s latest survey, conducted throughout April and
reaching 21,733 adults across 50 states, found that the divide between mothers
and fathers in views about the vaccine for children had widened.
Fathers’ resistance seems to be weakening a little, falling to
11 percent from 14 percent since February. But more than a quarter of mothers,
researchers said, still say they are “extremely unlikely” to vaccinate their
children. Both genders are more resistant to the vaccine for younger children
than for teenagers. Other research shows that mothers tend to have more sway
over the final decision than fathers.
The responses from parents may well change over time, experts
say. Just as adults were far more reluctant last summer when the vaccine was
still a concept, parents surveyed several weeks ago, when imminent authorization
for children under 16 had not been widely discussed, might also have been
reacting to a hypothetical situation rather than a reality.
But pediatricians and others who are seen as trusted sources of
information are already aware that they have considerable work to do to instill
vaccine confidence in this latest cohort.
Dr Sean O’Leary, a pediatrician in Denver who is vice chairman
of the committee on infectious diseases for the American Academy of Pediatrics,
predicted that just as adults had swarmed COVID vaccine providers during the
initial weeks of distribution, parents and pent-up young teenagers would rush
for it at the start, too.
But O’Leary, who often gives talks to pediatricians about how to
motivate patients to accept vaccinations, worries that a slowdown will
inevitably follow. To persuade hesitant parents, he said, “we have to make the
vaccine available in as many places as possible.”
He added, “If parents and patients are in the pediatrician’s
office and the doctor can say, ‘Hey, I’ve got it,’ that may be enough of a
nudge for them to say, ‘Let’s go ahead and do this.’”
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