Acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine continues to rise, finds a new US TODAY / Suffolk University Poll, but pessimism is also growing about things in the United States will return to normal.
Both results could be signs that the messages of President-elect Joe Biden are being heard. He himself took the vaccine and on camera – something President Donald Trump did not do – and warned that the pandemic would get worse before it got better.
Now 56% of respondents say they will get the vaccine as soon as it is available, a jump of 10 percentage points since the US TODAY poll in December and by 30 points since October.
“The more people get vaccinated and see that it’s safe … then more people are willing to go and get it,” said Shellie Belapurkar, 50, a nurse from Nashua, New Hampshire. She got the vaccine herself and volunteered at a clinic every week to give it to others.
“It’s all about education, and I do not think we have educated our population nearly enough to the dangers” of the coronavirus, “she said in an interview.
Most of the shift comes from those who were reluctant to get the vaccine until others took it first. Those who expressed the opinion made up 47% in October, 32% in December and now only 22%.
“When they first announced the vaccine was available, I was a little hesitant,” said Sandi Bethune, 71, a retired training manager for AT&T in Oakland, California. “I would never get it, but I wanted to wait a while and let other people be the guinea pigs.” Now, she said, “as soon as I can take it, I take it.”
But those declaring that they will not get the vaccine have barely emerged and have now declined to 18% compared to 20% in October and December.
“There’s so much in it that it’s not good for our bodies,” Brooklyn Parker, 28, a beautician from Watertown, New York, said she would never get the chance. “For me, natural vaccination is a better way to go COVID, just like flu.” As evidence, she noted that she had never received the flu vaccine, but had only contracted the flu twice.
Independent fact-checkers have reported that COVID-19 is far more lethal than influenza, and relying on ‘herd immunity’ without a vaccine will kill millions of Americans.
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The poll among 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cell phone from Jan. 11 to 15, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Optimism about when things will return to normal in the United States has waned.
In December, a 51% majority predicted that things would return to normal by the end of this year. Now only 44% feel that way, with 7 points. The stock, which says it will take several years, rose 4 points to 31%.
One in five, or 20%, asked when the country would return to normal, and answered “never.”
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This article originally appeared in the US TODAY: Poll: Acceptance of COVID Vaccination Rises; so too pessimism