If Johnson & Johnson and co-vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer meet their vaccine promises, the bigger question we’ll soon face is not whether we have enough doses of Covid-19 vaccines, but whether people will take them.
Recent polls suggest a steady decline in the vaccine population as more and more people are vaccinated in the US.
In the past two weeks alone, there have been two polls showing how much hesitation against vaccine has decreased. A survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 55% of adults say they want a Covid-19 vaccine as soon as possible or have already received their first dose. It rose from 47% in January and 34% in December.
While the percentage hard line “get it only if necessary” or “definitely not” has remained fairly constant at or just north of 20%, the hesitant population of “wait and see how it works” during the last two with almost half dropped months from 39% to 22%.
The voices of Axios / Ipsos show a similar trend line. Only 13% of adults said in September that they would get a vaccine against Covid-19 as soon as it became available. It rose 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 the Kaiser poll, the hard vaccine-resistant population (ie people who say they will not get the vaccine, or only if forced), is now the same size (18%) as in September (23%) and early in January (19%).
More people saying they would wait a period (a few weeks to a year or longer) to get the vaccine 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 part of the population has remained fairly constant (about 20%), is an indication that even a large amount of evidence that the vaccines are safe and effective and that it is our most likely path back to a normally functioning society , will not move them.
The good news is that the declining percentage of those in the middle (ie the hesitant vaccine) 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 driver for vaccination was that people wanted to know that the vaccine was safe and effective.
It is still the case that the willingness to get the vaccine is related to knowledge of the vaccine and the knowledge of people who received the vaccine.
To achieve herd immunity through vaccination, scientists believe somewhere between 70% and 90% of the population needs a vaccination. We will only reach that percentage if more people in the vaccine-hesitant population are persuaded to take the vaccine as soon as it is available.
Therefore, the next few months will be the key. Given Johnson & Johnson’s one-shot regime and Pfizer and Moderna’s two-shot scheme, we’re still a few months away. There are enough vaccines for everyone.
If the current vaccine delivery times exist and the lion’s share of people who are hesitant about vaccines convert to those who get the vaccine immediately, we could have enough vaccines for every adult who wants them before the end of May – and we has a much better chance of containing the coronavirus.
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