Americans’ willingness to get COVID-19 vaccine rises: Gallup

More Americans have shown a willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine than they did just a month prior, according to a new Gallup poll released Tuesday. 

In a survey conducted from Oct. 19-Nov. 1, 58 percent of respondents said they would get a vaccine, up from the 50 percent who said the same in September. 

Gallup noted that 42 percent of U.S. adults said they would not get a vaccine, which was down from 50 percent the month before. 

The report follows an announcement from drug development company Moderna that interim analysis revealed its candidate coronavirus vaccine to be 94.5 percent effective. The news came one week after Pfizer announced that its vaccine had an effectiveness rate of more than 90 percent. 

Gallup reported that the study, conducted before the announcements from the pharmaceutical companies, showed a particular rise in support for a vaccine among Democrats. 

According to Tuesday’s poll, 69 percent of Democrats said they would get a vaccine, a significant increase from 53 percent who said the same in September.

While the report noted that Democrats have been consistently more likely to support a vaccine than Republicans, the gap between the two groups shrunk to as little as 4 percentage points in September. 

Moderna says it expects to have 20 million doses for the United States by the end of 2020, a similar number to Pfizer, and will produce 500 million to 1 billion doses globally in 2021.

The Trump administration has entered contracts with both companies for 100 million doses of each vaccine, with the potential to purchase more.

Health care workers and others in higher-risk categories will be given priority in receiving the vaccine starting in December, with experts predicting that a Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccine may not be available to the general public until the spring of 2021. 

The increasing willingness to receive a coronavirus vaccine comes after some have vocalized doubt in the safety of candidates due to the Trump administration’s push to quickly get one approved for emergency use through its Operation Warp Speed. 

Several U.S. states, including New York, California and Oregon, have announced they would be establishing independent panels of experts to review the safety and efficacy of an FDA-approved vaccine before distributing it to residents.