Confidence in COVID-19 vaccines continues to rise, Ipsos-Forum poll shows

This article is brought to you thanks to the collaboration of The European Sting with the World Economic Forum.

Author: Sean Fleming, Senior Writer, Formative Content

• A new Ipsos-World Economic Forum survey shows a notable increase in COVID-19 vaccination intent since December in all 15 countries studied.
• Eighty-nine percent of people in Brazil say they’re ready to be vaccinated, with confidence also very high in Italy, China and Spain.
• Confidence in the vaccines has risen most in Italy – up 36 percentage points since December.

With COVID-19 vaccination programmes now under way in many parts of the world, confidence about getting the shot continues to rise.

The latest vaccine survey from Ipsos and the World Economic Forum looked at people’s intention to be vaccinated at the earliest possible date.

During the last few days of February, more than 13,500 adults under the age of 75 – who had not been vaccinated at that point – were asked online whether they would be likely to get their shots when offered.

Where are people most confident about being vaccinated?

• Very high in Brazil (89%) Italy (85%), China (82%), Spain (82%), Mexico (80%) and South Korea (80%).
• Fairly high in Canada (79%), Australia (78%), Japan (74%) and Germany (74%).
• Middling in the United States (65%), South Africa (65%) and France (59%).
• Low in Russia (42%).

The countries with the smallest increase from December 2020 of those who strongly agree they would get the vaccine are Russia (+2 to 16%) and the US (+3 to 41%).

At the other end of the spectrum, the number of adults who agree strongly that they would receive the COVID-19 vaccine rose by 36 percentage points to 62% in Italy, and 31 points to 57% in Spain. People in Brazil and the UK also express a high degree of confidence in being vaccinated.

How many people have been vaccinated?

The UK has made solid progress with the rollout of its vaccination programme. According to the country’s National Health Service (NHS), the total number of people to have received at least one dose had reached 17,179,491 at the end of February. In the final week of the month, 2,249,002 people received a vaccination shot.

That means about one-third of the UK population has now been given at least one dose of the vaccine. By comparison, in the US that proportion is 14% and for Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Spain it is between 3% and 5%, according to data from Oxford University cited by Ipsos.

Elsewhere around the world, vaccine uptake is also on the rise. In India, 21 million doses have now been administered. Last month that was just 5.8 million, according to Bloomberg, which also reported that 1.6 million people were vaccinated on Saturday in India.

As vaccination begins to lead to declining rates of infection, hospitalization and fatality in many countries, people aren’t just becoming more confident about being vaccinated, they say they wouldn’t hesitate.

Asked by Ipsos when they would get the vaccine, in most of the countries surveyed, the majority answered “immediately”.