30 percent of unvaccinated say omicron has made them consider inoculations: poll

A newly released Morning Consult survey shows that nearly 30 percent of respondents who have not yet been vaccinated against COVID-19 said that the emergence of the new omicron variant has made them consider inoculations.

About 11 percent of unvaccinated adults polled said that they “definitely” would consider getting vaccinated as a preventative measure against omicron, 19 percent said that they “probably” would consider inoculations and 42 percent of the unvaccinated adults surveyed said that “definitely” would not. 

Along party lines, 30 percent of Democratic men said that they would consider getting the vaccine to protect against the omicron variant, and 29 percent of Democratic women agreed. Just 4 percent of Republican men responded “yes, definitely” when asked about getting vaccinated as a preventative measure after the discovery of the omicron variant and 6 percent of Republican women responded in the same way, pollsters discovered.

Adults who reported that they are concerned about the omicron variant are more likely to say that they would get vaccinated because of it compared to their counterparts who said they are not concerned. Twenty percent of adults who said they were concerned about the variant responded “yes, definitely” to getting vaccinated against coronavirus as a precaution, while only 3 percent of adult respondents who said that they were not concerned about it agreed, the poll showed.

The omicron variant was first detected in South Africa and has also been identified in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Israel, Italy, Germany and Belgium.

Morning Consult conducted its poll Nov. 29-30 among 2,200 adults in the U.S. Its results have a margin of error of 2 percentage points.