A new INNOVATIVE poll tracking attitudes towards vaccines shows willingness to get a vaccine going up while hesitancy is stable.
Over the past two weeks, INNOVATIVE looked at willingness to be vaccinated for the fourth time in the pandemic. Almost 3-in-4 Canadians report either having had a shot (11%), definitely wanting a shot (52%) or very likely to get a shot (10%). This is actually 3 or 4 points higher than earlier polls while the 12% who say they are unlikely to get vaccinated is almost identical to our last poll.
We also included a new question asking how confident are you generally in the safety and efficiency of the various vaccines now available? Three-out-of-four (76%) say they are at least somewhat confident while 20% are not confident.
This directional improvement in willingness to be vaccinated occurred while 69% of Canadians paid at least some attention to the story of a possible increase in risk of blood clots among those taking the AZ vaccine. The largest number of respondents (38%) say they are not worried about this issue. One third (32%) say they are now more worried about AZ but not other vaccines. One-in-five (21%) say this issue leaves them more worried about all vaccines. Those following the issue most closely are more likely to say they are not worried than those paying less attention. Older people are following the new most closely and are most confident in vaccines. People under 55 are paying less attention and have more concerns.
Given the stability in willingness to get vaccinated, it appears what we have seen so far is a case of confirmatory bias. People who were already skeptical of vaccines have a new reason to be skeptical, but the issue so far does not seem to creating new skeptics.
