Nearly 30 percent of Republicans say they won’t get vaccinated: poll

Nearly 30 percent of Republicans say they are not planning to be vaccinated against COVID-19, according to a poll released Sunday.

A CBS News-YouGov poll found that 52 percent of Republicans are either fully or partially vaccinated, while 6 percent plan to be vaccinated and 6 percent are undecided. Twenty-nine percent do not plan to be vaccinated, the poll found.

Meanwhile, 77 percent of Democrats said they were either fully or partially vaccinated, while 12 percent plan to be vaccinated and 6 percent are undecided. About 5 percent of Democrats say they don’t plan to be vaccinated.

In regard to whether the vaccine should be mandated by employers, nearly 80 percent of Democrats polled said yes, compared with 39 percent of Republicans. 

Among those in the poll who said they would not get vaccinated or are still undecided, the most people — 50 percent — said they felt the vaccine hadn’t been properly tested or they were waiting to see what would happen with the vaccine. Forty percent said they didn’t trust the government, while 30 percent said they didn’t trust science or drug companies.

Eleven percent of those polled said they believe that because they’ve had COVID-19, they’re now immune from the virus.

The poll comes as vaccination rates across the U.S. plummet and public health officials and the White House embark on a push to vaccinate hard-to-reach Americans. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that about 64 percent of American adults are at least partially vaccinated.

But conspiracy theories and misinformation have circulated since the vaccines were released, complicating that effort. 

Anti-vaccine activists and some Republicans have already started to support calls to make it harder to mandate the vaccine. According to USA Today, legislation that would make it illegal to mandate a vaccine have been introduced by lawmakers in over 40 states.

One example is an Ohio lawmaker who introduced in April the Enact Vaccine Choice and Anti-Discrimination Act, which would protect individuals from being discriminated against if they chose not to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) has come out against the bill.

During a hearing in the Ohio legislature over the bill, a nurse claimed that the vaccine made her “magnetic” as she attempted to get a bobby pin and key to stick to her. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already debunked the theory, saying that vaccines can’t make you magnetic. 

The CBS News-YouGov poll was conducted between June 8 and June 10 among a nationally representative sample of 2,037 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.