Getty The race for a COVID-19 vaccine is on.
A poll by ABC News and the Washington Post says that 27 percent of adults in the United States would not get a COVID-19 vaccine even if one becomes available. On July 5, that led the FDA Commissioner to express concern, even as he pledged that the government will do its job to make sure vaccine candidates are safe.
FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said on ABC News: “It is a sizeable number and it is concerning and of course the issue of vaccines in this country has been around for a number of years….the nation’s FDA has incredible scientific expertise, and we will do our job to assess the safety and efficacy of a vaccine candidate.”
In addition, the poll found that opposite to taking a vaccine is particularly strong among Republicans, with 45 percent of strong conservatives unwilling to take one, including four in 10 Republicans. The poll was released on June 2.
“Unpersuaded by more than 100,000 pandemic deaths in the United States, 45 percent of strong conservatives, four in 10 Republicans and nearly as many evangelical Christians say they’d be unlikely to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, even for free,” the poll found. According to The Washington Post, the race for a COVID-19 vaccine is on, with more than 150 possible vaccines being developed by “multinational pharmaceutical companies, academic groups and government laboratories around the world.”
Here’s what you need to know:
The Poll Found That More People Would ‘Probably’ Not Get a COVID-19 Vaccine
A recent poll showed 27% of adults are unlikely to accept a free COVID-19 vaccine, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn tells @martharaddatz “It is concerning… [FDA] will do our job to assess the safety and the efficacy of a vaccine candidate.” t.co/jSvsodontM
The poll found that some people don’t trust vaccines but others don’t think it’s needed with COVID-19.
Overall, the poll found, “27 percent of adults in an ABC News/Washington Post poll say they definitely (15 percent) or probably (12 percent) would not get the vaccine. Among them, half say they don’t trust vaccines in general, while nearly a quarter don’t think it’s needed in this case.”
The poll continued:
A plurality definitely would get vaccinated (43 percent) and 28 percent say they probably would. The net, 71 percent, is much higher than the adult vaccination rate for the standard seasonal flu – 45 percent in the 2018-19 flu season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (with a wide range by state, from 34 to 56 percent.) It’s much lower than the 2017 child vaccination rates for polio and measles/mumps/rubella, 93 and 92 percent, respectively. A mix of groups express less interest in getting vaccinated – 46 percent of Republican women,
45 percent (as noted) very conservative Americans, 40 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of evangelical Christians.
According to ABC News, other polls have found similar results – Fox News, ABC/Ipsos, Pew Research and CNN – “in which 23 to 33% of adults have said they would not get vaccinated or would not be likely to.”
You can read the poll here.
Coronavirus Cases Are Spiking in the United States
GettyIs dizziness a symptom of COVID-19 coronavirus?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are now 2,841,906 COVID-19 cases in the United States, with 52,228 new cases. There have been 129,576 deaths, with 271 new deaths. That’s as of July 5, 2020.
CDCCoronavirus cases.
“Forty jurisdictions report more than 10,000 cases of COVID-19,” CDC reports.
You can track charts showing deaths by state here. Deaths have declined in recent weeks in the U.S. even as cases have spiked. That may, in part, be because younger people are contracting the virus whose immunity systems are best equipped to fight it off.
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