Gorenjski glas Intention to vaccinate increases with age

After news of finding an effective vaccine against covid-19 reverberated last week, a public opinion poll in Valicon verified the likelihood that the population of Slovenia will be vaccinated when the vaccine becomes available. Intention to vaccinate is currently higher only among those with a sense of health threat, over the age of sixty and close to experiencing infection. The most common reason against vaccination, however, is distrust of the vaccine.

Ljubljana – Only 16% of respondents in Valicon’s #Novanormalnost survey said they would get vaccinated permanently, 28% are likely to get vaccinated and a good quarter of respondents (26%) said they definitely won’t get vaccinated, and almost a third (31%) who are unlikely to be vaccinated. The survey was conducted on 527 adults between 13 and 15 November.

Reasons for and against

Respondents who would have opted for vaccination most often chose the response they felt was responsible for others or who wanted to reduce the likelihood of infection in this way. Among the most common responses were that they have family members in the home who belong to the risk group and do not want to infect them, and some have also said they do not want to overload the health system in case of a severe infection or because vaccination is recommended by the medical profession. .

Intention to vaccinate is expected to increase with age, being greater among those who consider themselves at risk for a more severe course of the disease and among those who are infected in their immediate environment. Surprisingly, the intention to vaccinate is lower among those who otherwise experience the current situation in a very negative way (desperate, critical, sometimes chaotic). The most common reason against vaccination is distrust of the new vaccine; as many as 61% of respondents felt it would take longer for the vaccine to prove safe and 41% feared side effects. Some have also claimed as a reason that the coronavirus is constantly mutating and therefore the vaccine will not protect them, that they are not in the risk group, that vaccines are generally not safe …

Trust in professional and political authorities will be crucial

Andraž Zorko from Valicon commented on the results. As he said, we need to understand them in two contexts: “The first is the further spread of the virus among the population. The more infections there are, the fewer people who don’t know anyone with the infection, the greater the intention to vaccinate. On the other hand, among those who have been confirmed infected or believe they have been infected, the intention to vaccinate is significantly lower. According to both, the intention to vaccinate by spreading infections is expected to increase moderately in the coming weeks, as the growth in awareness of who is infected will be greater than the number of actual infections. The second context relates to the dissemination of information on the virus and its vaccine. If we want to reach a correspondingly high proportion of the population, the tables of reasons for vaccination and against it offer us the right direction of argument and communication. On the positive side of the matter, this is definitely a call to care for loved ones and solidarity with other vulnerable groups, and to support the health system, in which the majority of the population still has a high level of trust. On the rejection side, the main obstacle is fear, which fuels much of the negative attitude towards vaccination. The more information there is on the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, the more likely it is that some of those who are not in favor of vaccination today will change their minds. The main obstacle in this case will be the dissemination of unverified or even false information, which, judging by the results, will not fail. If the fact that the goal is at least 60% vaccination is true, then those responsible for communicating the outbreak still have a lot of work to do. Obviously, in this case too, trust in professional and political authorities will be of fundamental importance “.