by Andrew Trunsky
Sixty-one percent of Americans surveyed now say that they would not get a first-generation coronavirus vaccine as soon as it available, an Axios-Ipsos poll shows.
The percentage is eight points lower than a month ago, a drop that is reflected among both Democrats and Republicans, the Ipsos index shows. The United States is approaching 200,000 coronavirus deaths, according to a Johns Hopkins University database.
Only 43% of Democrats surveyed said that they would receive a vaccine as soon as it became available, down 13 points from August. Only a third of Republicans surveyed said the same, reflecting an eight-point drop from a month ago, Axios reported.
Most Americans not only expect to pay little out of pocket for a vaccine but have little willingness to spend money to receive the vaccine, according to Ipsos. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said that they would not pay more than $50 for a vaccine, and 33% said that they were unwilling to pay anything at all.
The survey also represents a deepening partisan rift regarding the pandemic. While 69% of Republicans trust President Donald Trump to deliver accurate COVID-19 information, only 7% of Democrats said the same, the survey shows. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was trusted by 80% of Democrats but only 12% of Republicans. Independents break towards the former vice president 43%-27%.
Only 31% of voters trust Trump to deliver accurate information, compared to 46% who said they trust Biden. The metric comes after a recent Politico report alleged that the Trump administration interfered with the Centers for Disease Control’s reports on the virus and recommended testing guidelines, leading some prominent Democrats to announce their hesitancy towards a vaccine as well.
While Trump has floated the possibility of a vaccine being ready before the November election, administration officials including Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield have said that a vaccine may not be created and distributed until mid-2021.
The margin of error for the poll is 3.0-3.4 percentage points.
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Andrew Trunsky is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
Photo “Vaccine” by KMOUnews CC2.0
