The number of Americans opposed to getting a COVID-19 vaccine reached a new low this month, a poll found.
The Gallup poll, conducted Sept. 13-19, found fewer respondents than ever said they don’t plan to get a coronavirus vaccine while more than ever said they are already vaccinated or plan to be. The findings, released Wednesday, come as concerns about contracting the virus have risen as the highly contagious delta variant sparks outbreaks and weeks after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the Pfizer vaccine its full approval.
The findings were based on an update to Gallup’s monthly tracking survey, which included 4,034 adults and which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
Drop in vaccine opposition
Seventy-five percent of respondents said they are fully or partially vaccinated while 5% said they plan to be.
That combined 80% is a jump from 77% in August and “the highest yet this year,” according to Gallup.
Meanwhile, the remaining 20% of respondents said they don’t plan to get a COVID-19 vaccine — down from 23% in August and the lowest “since coronavirus vaccines became available to the general public earlier this year,” Gallup found.
Gallup also found that vaccination status “continues to vary sharply” by political party identification.
Ninety-two percent of Democrats surveyed said they have received at least one dose of the vaccine, while 68% of independents and 56% of Republicans said the same.
But Gallup noted that the September survey marks the first time a majority of Republicans polled said they are at least partially vaccinated. The percentage is up six points from August, which Gallup said is the “largest monthly uptick in vaccination among Republicans since April when vaccines were just becoming widely available.”
The decrease in COVID-19 vaccine opposition comes weeks after the FDA on Aug. 23 formally approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for people ages 16 and older. The vaccine remains available under emergency use authorization for children ages 12-15. The Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines remain available under the same authorization for people ages 18 and older.
Accordingly, Gallup found a significant drop in the number of people opposed to getting the vaccine who said they were waiting for a vaccine to be fully approved before doing so — down to 1% from 5% in August.
Now, Gallup found that the reasons people who don’t plan to get the vaccine most commonly cited are “have had COVID-19 or have the antibodies” and “concerned about timeline for developing the vaccines,” with 5% and 4% of people citing those reasons, respectively.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said people who have had COVID-19 and recovered should get vaccinated because “research has not yet shown how long you are protected from getting COVID-19 again after you recover from COVID-19” and because vaccination “helps protect you even if you’ve already had COVID-19.”
The agency has also said that “while COVID-19 vaccines were developed rapidly, all steps were taken to make sure they are safe and effective.”
Concerns about contracting COVID-19
The decrease in vaccine opposition comes as Gallup found an increase in concerns about contracting COVID-19.
“Forty percent of adults now say they are very or somewhat worried about being infected, similar to 39% in August but up from 29% in July and 17% in June,” Gallup said, noting that the increase comes during a “spike in infections around the country due to the delta variant of the coronavirus.”
The variant’s spread and the continuing surge in infections has prompted new restrictions and face mask mandates in some areas of the country. The CDC recommends that fully vaccinated people wear masks in public indoor settings in areas with high or substantial transmission because of those surges.
Data has shown the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing severe disease, hospitalizations and death, even with the delta variant, McClatchy News previously reported. It’s still possible for fully vaccinated people to have breakthrough cases — but those infections don’t mean the vaccines aren’t working properly as they were not designed to prevent all infections.
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