The Boston Globe: Two-thirds of Americans say they would accept a coronavirus vaccine

By Felice J. Freyer

Two-thirds of Americans say they would likely accept a coronavirus vaccine for themselves or their children, according to a national survey released Thursday that shows wide variation by geography, political affiliation, and race or ethnicity.

The survey’s lead author said the findings don’t bode well for the vaccine efforts, with some experts estimating that 70 percent to 90 percent of people would need to be vaccinated to get the virus under control.

Still, the survey provides a more encouraging number than a poll in May that found half of Americans would reject a vaccine against coronavirus.

“We have our work cut out for us,” said Dr. Roy H. Perlis, director of the Center for Quantitative Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. “We had a vaccine problem in this country long before COVID, with falling rates of childhood vaccination, with difficulty getting people to get a flu vaccine.”

But Dr. Barbara A. Pahud, research director of pediatric infectious diseases at the Children’s Mercy medical center in Kansas City, Mo., was elated by the survey results.

“Those numbers are very encouraging,” said Pahud, who is leading the Kansas City site in the upcoming clinical trial of AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate. In her experience, public acceptance of a coronavirus vaccine had seemed to be about 50 percent, she said, but the survey findings suggest a shift in attitude as the pandemic persists. “Maybe this pandemic is what we needed,” she said. “Maybe people have witnessed what a disease can do when we don’t have a vaccine.”

If two-thirds of Americans end up taking a coronavirus vaccine, that would be an improvement over the flu vaccine, taken by fewer than half of American adults, she noted.

Read the full article via The Boston Globe

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