A survey of 732,308 Americans shows some surprising results as to who is most likely to decline or shy away from getting a COVID vaccine. While the online survey finds resistance to getting a COVID-19 vaccine is slowly diminishing — vaccine hesitancy fell from 27.5% in January to 22% in March — it still exists, especially in some blue-collar jobs.
Nearly half (48%) of those who were reluctant to get vaccinated said they were concerned about side effects and more than a third said they didn't think they needed the shot, didn't trust the government, were waiting to see if the vaccine was safe or didn't trust COVID-19 vaccines specifically.
Survey results showed that vaccine hesitancy ranged from 9.6% among educators and people in life, physical or social sciences to a high of 46% among workers in construction, oil and gas extraction and mining. Hesitancy was nearly as high among workers in installation, maintenance, repair, farming, fishing or forestry.
In health care fields, pharmacists were the least hesitant at 8.5%. The highest hesitancy, 20.5%, was among medical assistants, emergency medical technicians and home health, nursing, psychiatric or personal-care aides.
SOURCE: Drugs.com April 29, 2021