Infographic – Split U.S. Decision on Covid-19 Vaccine

Click on image for full-size view (Statista)

15 Aug. 2020. While the U.S. government, drug makers, and biotech companies pour billions of dollars into vaccines against Covid-19 infections, a large percentage of the American public is still not ready to be vaccinated. Results from a recent Gallup Poll show one in three American adults (35%) would not get a Covid-19 vaccine, even if free and approved by the FDA.

The Gallup data, compiled by the business research company Statista, show two-thirds of U.S. respondents (65%) would agree to be vaccinated against Covid-19. Younger, urban, and White Americans are somewhat more likely to get the vaccine than their older, rural, and non-White counterparts. But the greatest predictor is political affiliation: eight in 10 Democratic respondents (81%) would get the vaccine, while Republicans are divided about evenly — 47 percent say yes, while 53 percent say no.

Gallup asked the question 20 July to 2 Aug. of 7,632 adults, aged 18 and older, taking part in the Gallup Panel, recruited through probability-based random methods.

Poll questions of this kind are, of course, speculative, since Covid-19 vaccines in Western countries are only now reaching late-stage, large-scale clinical trials. Yet the responses indicate the need for a large-scale education campaign and public health policies encouraging the public to get vaccinated.

More from Science & Enterprise:

• Covid-19 Vaccines, Therapies – 10 August 2020
• Two Covid-19 Vaccines Show Preclinical Immune Responses
• Synthetic Protein Designed to Boost Covid-19 Vaccines

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