Health Care

Large majority of unvaccinated say they don’t intend to get the shot: poll

A large majority of Americans that are not vaccinated against the coronavirus say they do not intend on getting inoculated, according to a poll released Friday.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents in The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll said they had received at least one dose of a vaccine, while 32 percent had not.

Of those who said they had not received a COVID-19 shot, 81 percent said they would not get a vaccine. This includes 45 percent who said they would “definitely” not get inoculated and 35 percent who said they “probably” would not.

Only 19 percent said they would likely get vaccinated, including 3 percent who said they definitely would and 16 percent who said they probably would take the shot.

The survey comes as the U.S. grapples with a rise in cases fueled by the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus, which now accounts for 83 percent of new infections.

Last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky described the rise in new infections as “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.” The states with the worst outbreaks have lower vaccination rates.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they were “extremely” or “very” confident that the vaccines would be effective against variants of the coronavirus.

Forty-one percent said they were somewhat confident, while 30 percent said they were “not very” confident or “not at all confident.”

Those not vaccinated were more likely to say they were not confident in the vaccine’s ability to protect against variants, with 64 percent expressing no confidence.