“It is very encouraging to see that there has been an apparent positive shift in people’s perception of these products,” said Dr. David Nabarro, co-director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College London, said in a statement.
About 13,500 people were interviewed four times each between November and mid-January. Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom were included in the analysis.
The US was not included in the Imperial College survey, but a CNN poll, also conducted in mid-January, found that 66% of Americans say they would get a vaccine for Covid-19, compared to 51 % in October.
The UK has the majority of respondents who strongly agreed that they would get a vaccine, 70%. At the other end of the spectrum was France, with 30% – although it had doubled since November, when only 15% of people in France were surveyed.
France also had the highest percentage of people who strongly agreed that they were concerned about vaccine side effects, 40%. However, concerns about potential vaccine side effects have been declining since November in most of the participating countries, with 47% of respondents saying they were concerned about side effects.
About 66% of respondents said they trust the vaccine, while more than half of the population trusts vaccines in all countries except Japan.
More than half of respondents, 58%, believe that the government’s health authorities will deliver an effective Covid-19 vaccine – with the share of respondents most strongly agreeing in 11 countries increased in November.
Concerns about coronavirus infection have remained relatively stable since November, with the largest concerns in Japan, Spain and South Korea and the lowest in Australia.
The results suggest that access to Covid-19 vaccines is a challenge. About 54% of the people participating in the survey said it would be difficult to get a vaccine. People in South Korea and Japan reported the biggest access problems, while those in Norway and Denmark reported the least.
“As vaccines will play an important role in fighting the pandemic, leaders must now take action to help more people understand the benefits of vaccination against COVID-19 and make sure no one is left behind,” Nabarro said. said.