Poll: Democrats, Republicans split on vaccine requirements for reopening schools and businesses
Democrats and Republicans are sharply divided over the next step in the nation’s coronavirus recovery, according to poll results released Sunday.
Most Democrats favor businesses and schools requiring workers and students get vaccinated before they can come back, while most Republicans hold the opposite view, a Harvard University-Politico survey found.
The White House has been urging Americans to get jabbed on a voluntary basis, shying away from issuing any mandates. Federal and local officials have rolled out all kinds of incentives, from free sports tickets to beer vouchers.
“Please, get vaccinated now. It works. It’s free,” President Joe Biden pleaded earlier this month.
“It’s never been easier and it’s never been more important,” he said. “Do it now for yourself and the people you care about, for your neighborhood, for your country. It sounds corny, but it’s a patriotic thing to do.”
Still, vaccinations have slowed down as the highly contagious delta variant has become the dominant strain in the U.S.
Asked whether students ages 12 and up should be required to get vaccines in order to return to public school, 62% of Democrats said yes and 60% of Republicans said no, according to the poll. They gave similar responses when asked about teachers.
As to private businesses, 64% of Democrats said they should require employees to get jabbed, and 56% of Republicans said the opposite.
A sample of 1,009 adults was surveyed over the phone from June 22 to 27.
“An important takeaway from the poll is that in these [Republican-leaning] areas it is going to be very slow in getting these people to agree to take a vaccine,” Politico quoted Harvard’s Robert Blendon, who designed the poll, as saying.
“There is a culture in part of the country that is very resistant to having the government tell people how to live their lives,” he said.
