Growing confidence in US in Covid vaccine: Pew survey

A growing number of Americans plan to get vaccinated against Covid-19 with confidence increasing particularly among African Americans, according to a Pew Research Center survey published on Friday.

Sixty-nine percent of the adults polled last month by Pew said they have already been vaccinated or plan to get dosed, up from 60 percent who said they planned to get vaccinated in November.

Of the 69 percent, 19 percent said they had already received at least one dose of Covid-19 vaccine.

Sixty-one percent of the African-Americans surveyed said they planned to get vaccinated, up sharply from 42 percent who said they would in November, Pew said.

The African-American population has been particularly hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic which has killed more than 520,000 people in the United States.

Democrats are 27 percentage points more likely than Republicans -- 83 percent to 56 percent -- to say they plan to get vaccinated or have already been vaccinated, Pew said.

Two-thirds of those surveyed said they know someone who has been hospitalized for Covid-19 or someone who has died of the disease, a figure which rises to 78 percent among Black Americans.

Forty-nine percent of Black adults consider the coronavirus a major threat to their personal health compared with 26 percent of white adults, Pew said.

A number of reasons were cited by the 30 percent of adults who said they did not plan to get vaccinated. Among them were concerns about side effects and a sense the vaccines were developed and tested too quickly.

The Pew survey of 10,000 people was conducted February 16-21, before the approval by US authorities of the latest vaccine from Johnson & Johnson.

Andy Slavitt, White House senior advisor for COVID-19 response, said Friday that more than 82 million Covid shots have been administered in the United States -- "more than any country in the world."

"Nearly 55 percent of people aged 65 or older have received at least one shot," Slavitt said.