If Johnson & Johnson and other vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer live up to their vaccine promises, the big question we may be facing soon will not be whether we have enough doses of Covid-19 vaccines, but whether people will actually get them.
Recent research suggests a continuing drop in the population hesitant about vaccination, as more and more people are vaccinated in the United States.
In the past two weeks alone, there have been two surveys showing how much vaccine hesitation has decreased. The Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 55% of adults say they now want a vaccine against Covid-19 as soon as possible or have already received their first dose. This is an increase of 47% in January and 34% in December.
While the percentage of hard-line “get it only if necessary” or “definitely not” has remained reasonably consistent at or north of 20%, the hesitant “wait and see how it’s working” population has dropped by almost half over the past two months from 39% to 22%.
The Axios / Ipsos survey shows a similar trend line. Only 13% of adults said in September that they would receive the Covid-19 vaccine as soon as it became available to them. This jumped to 27% in early December to 43% in early January. Now 57% say they have already received the vaccine or will get it as soon as possible.
As in Kaiser’s research, the population resistant to the hardline vaccine (that is, people who say they will not get the vaccine or will only get it if forced) is basically the same size now (18%) as it was in September (23%) and early January (19%).
More people who say they will wait a period of time (a few weeks to a year or more) to receive the vaccine have declined rapidly: 64% in September, 51% in early December, 38% in early January and 28% now.
Unfortunately, it will be difficult to convince the vaccine-resistant population. The fact that this proportion of the population has remained reasonably constant (around 20%) is an indication that even a lot of evidence that vaccines are safe and effective and is our most likely way back to a functioning society normal will not change them.
The good news is that the decreasing percentage of those in the middle (that is, hesitant vaccines) is what we would expect, as more and more people are vaccinated safely. Even before the FDA approved the vaccines, I pointed out that a major motivator for the vaccine’s hesitation was that people wanted to know if the vaccine was safe and effective.
It is still the case that the willingness to receive the vaccine is correlated with knowledge about the vaccine and getting to know the people who received it.
To achieve collective immunity through vaccination, scientists believe that somewhere between 70% and 90% of the population will need a vaccine. We will only achieve this percentage if more people in the vaccine hesitant population are convinced to get the vaccine as soon as it is made available to them.
That is why the next few months will be crucial. Given the Johnson & Johnson one-dose regimen and the two-dose regimen by Pfizer and Moderna, we are still a few months away from having enough vaccines for everyone.
If current vaccine delivery deadlines remain and the number of hesitant people becomes those who will receive the vaccine immediately, we may have enough vaccines for each adult who wants one before the end of May – and we have a much better chance of containing the vaccine. coronavirus.
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