COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Is on the Decline: Some Reasons Why

• Researchers report that about a third of people who were hesitant about getting a COVID-19 vaccine last year are now more willing to get vaccinated.
• Another poll indicates that the Delta variant surge, the increase in hospitalizations, and personal knowledge of someone with COVID-19 were the major factors in convincing people to get vaccinated.
• Experts note there’s a difference between people who are “anti-vaccine” and those who are vaccine hesitant.

Roughly a third of people who were hesitant to get vaccinated in 2020 are now willing to be inoculated against COVID-19.

A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reports that vaccine hesitancy decreased from late 2020 to early 2021, with 32 percent of people changing from vaccine hesitant to vaccine willing.

“Vaccine hesitancy is waning, yet inequities in receipt remain. There is a clear public health opportunity to convert higher vaccine willingness into successfully delivered vaccinations,” the study authors wrote.

Study participants were surveyed between August 9 and December 8, 2020, and surveyed again between March 2 and April 21, 2021.

Of those who reported they were vaccine hesitant in the first survey, 32 percent reported receiving one or more vaccine doses by the follow-up survey.

Another 37 percent said they were likely to be vaccinated in the near future, and 32 percent said they were unlikely to be vaccinated.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released today uncovered some reasons for the uptick in vaccinations.

In their survey, 39 percent of people vaccinated since June 1 said the surge of the Delta variant motivated them to get their shots. Another 38 percent said overcrowding in hospitals convinced them, while another 36 percent reported they knew someone who became seriously ill or died after developing COVID-19.

Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said the results of the JAMA study are not surprising.

“That generally reflects the trends we’re seeing in the U.S. Over the last couple of months there have been more and more of these people who had previously been hesitant or skeptical who are accepting vaccination and this is continuing in a steady way,” Schaffner told Healthline.

“The arrival of the Delta variant has really meant that this virus has penetrated even to rural areas… and people are seeing their neighbors and friends admitted to the hospital with serious disease,” he added. “This is slowly persuading people that COVID-19 is not a myth.”