Vaccine enthusiasm continues to rise among US adults, poll shows

Enthusiasm surrounding the coronavirus vaccines in the U.S. has continued to rise month-over-month, according to a recent survey conducted by The Kaiser Family Foundation.

“Enthusiasm for getting the COVID-19 vaccine continues to grow among people across racial and ethnic backgrounds, with the largest increase this month among Black adults,” KFF stated in its report. 

Sixty-one percent of U.S. adults in March said that they have already gotten or will get a vaccine as soon as possible compared to 55 percent who said the same in February. 

Among ethnic and racial groups, enthusiasm for the virus has also increased for the vaccine. 

Over half of Black adults surveyed said that they have already gotten or will get a vaccine as soon as they can, compared to 41 percent of Black Americans who said the same in February.

The number is inching closer to the number of Hispanic Americans (61 percent) and white Americans (64 percent) who have shown enthusiasm to get the vaccine. 

When the vaccine effort was rolled out in December, public surveys showed that skepticism ran high among the general public due to the speed at which the coronavirus vaccines were developed. In particular, leaders in the Black community — lawmakers, celebrities and clergy — encouraged their communities to get vaccinated amid widespread skepticism stemming from historic medical racism and mistreatment. 

The number of people who have said they will “wait and see” to receive the vaccine has also decreased in March. 

Seventeen percent of participants surveyed said that they would wait and see to get the vaccine, compared to 22 percent of those surveyed in February. 

Those who said they will “definitely not” get a vaccine has remained steady, month-to-month since December —  between 13 and 15 percent.

KFF also observed a “pervasive” partisan divide when it came to those who said they would get the vaccine.

Seventy-nine percent of Democrats said they would get the vaccine, compared to 57 percent of independents and 46 percent of Republicans. About 30 percent of Republicans said that they would “definitely not” get vaccinated, a similar share who said the same in February. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 148 million vaccine doses have been administered in the U.S. 

The KFF survey was conducted March 15-22 among 1,862 adults ages 18 and older (including interviews from 476 Hispanic adults and 490 non-Hispanic Black adults), living in the United States.