Vast majority of people willing to get Covid vaccine next week if possible – survey

The vast majority of people would be willing to receive the Covid-19 vaccine next week if they could, but women are four times more likely to decline the jab than men, a new survey has found.

Data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), which examined the social impact of Covid-19, shows that almost nine out of 10 people who were surveyed would want to get the vaccine next week if it was possible to do so.

Men were more likely to report that they would take the vaccine next week, with 92.5 per cent of male respondents saying yes, compared with 81.6 per cent of female respondents.

Older respondents, those aged 70 years and over, were mostly likely to report that they would take the vaccine next week, with 96.1 per cent saying yes.

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Respondents aged between 35 and 44 were least likely to want to get the vaccine next week, with only 76.7 per cent saying they would.

Female respondents were four times more likely to say they do not want to get the vaccine than men, with 8.7 per cent compared with 2.1 per cent of male respondents.

Of those who said they do not want to receive the vaccine, two in three, or 66.2 per cent, said they are worried about long-term side effects, one in five (20.5 per cent) believe the vaccine would not protect them from Covid-19; while more than one in six (17.3 per cent) were worried about short-term side effects.

Almost one in two (46.3 per cent) people who want to get vaccinated said they were “very” or “extremely” worried about having a long wait before getting vaccinated.

Just over one in five people that have or want to receive the vaccine said they were “very” or “extremely” concerned about the length of time the vaccine will protect them from the Covid-19 virus.

Concern

Similar proportions of people were concerned about the effectiveness of the vaccine against different strains of the virus.

Other concerns included vaccinated individuals spreading Covid-19 to individuals not yet vaccinated (20.5 per cent), different levels of effectiveness between vaccines (19.1 per cent) and long-term side effects (18.2 per cent).

Female respondents were more likely to report being “very” or “extremely” concerned about all aspects of the vaccine compared with male respondents.

The country’s vaccine programme is currently in the early stages, with three cohorts of people – those aged 65 years and older who live in long-term care facilities, frontline healthcare workers and those aged 85 and older living in the community – currently receiving inoculations.

There are currently three vaccinations licensed for use in Ireland: Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna vaccine and AstraZeneca. However, a number of other vaccines are in the final stages of licensing and approval.

As of Friday, February 26th, 426,070 vaccines had been administered, of which 285,780 were first doses, and 140,290 being second doses.