A new Quinnipiac University poll found that 68% of Americans plan to or already have gotten a COIVD-19 vaccine but more than one-quarter of those surveyed say they don’t plan to get the vaccine.
The poll comes out as government data show half of the adults in the United States have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine and nearly one-third are fully vaccinated.
Among the polls’ findings, younger people and Republicans are the most hesitant to get the shot.
Republicans show the most hesitancy out any group surveyed about getting a vaccine, with 45% saying they do not plan to receive one and 50% saying they’ve either gotten one already or plan to get one.
“In this case, a disturbingly large proportion of Republicans only, actually works against where they want to be,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said. “They want to be able to say these restrictions that are put on by public health recommendations are things that they’re very concerned about. We’re all concerned about that. We share that concern but the way you get rid of those restrictions is to get as many people vaccinated as quickly and as expeditiously as possible.”
Among adults under the age of 35, 36% say they don’t plan on getting a vaccine, which is higher than the 27% overall and much higher than the 10% of senior citizens who said they won’t get a shot.
This poll’s result has been repeated over and over again in the polling data. Only 49% of those under the age of 30 in a Kaiser Family Foundation survey taken last month said that they would be getting a vaccine as soon as possible or had already gotten one.
This matches with data from the CDC, which indicates that younger adults have been the least likely to get vaccinated so far. Of course, many states have only recently opened up the eligibility for younger Americans to get vaccinated.
The fact that younger people have been slower on the vaccine uptake is worrisome because they are also the least likely to socially distance themselves. According to an average of March Axios/Ipsos polls, adults under the age of 30 were on average 7 points less likely to say they were socially distancing than adults overall.
This lack of social distancing and lack of vaccine uptake could help to explain why younger people have been the most likely to get infected with the coronavirus recently. Throughout March, 18- to 24-year-olds had the highest number of cases per 100,000 people. The second highest was 25- to 34-year-olds. The initial data we have from April shows the same thing.