Just over half say they would get low-cost vaccine if available: poll

Slightly more than half of respondents said they would get a low-cost coronavirus vaccine if it were available, according to a poll released on Monday.

The CNN survey conducted by SPSS found that 51 percent of American adults said they would try to get inoculated if a low-cost vaccine was made available. Forty-five percent of respondents said they would not, and 4 percent were undecided or refused to answer the question.

The 51 percent who said they would try to get a low-cost vaccine is the smallest percentage CNN has recorded since May. 

President Trump’s supporters had led a previous decline in an August poll, when 38 percent said they wouldn’t try to get a vaccine, compared to 51 percent in May. 

But since August, the percentage of Trump supporters who said they would try to get the vaccine has remained about the same at 41 percent. 

The recent decline in willingness to get the vaccine comes from supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who has expressed concerns about administration officials putting pressure on scientists. In May and August, broad majorities of Biden supporters said they would get a low-cost vaccine, at 79 percent and 74 percent, respectively.

In October’s poll, 60 percent of Biden’s supporters said they would try to get the low-cost vaccine. 

Overall, 61 percent of Democrats, 47 percent of independents and 45 percent of Republicans said they would seek out a low-cost vaccine. 

A majority of Americans — 61 percent — said they are either very or somewhat confident that the ongoing vaccine trials are correctly balancing safety and speed, while 37 percent said they were not too confident or not confident at all. 

The CNN poll conducted by SRSS surveyed 1,205 people between Oct. 1 and 4. The margin of error amounted to 3.3 percentage points.