Poll: Massive Delta surge hasn't convinced unvaccinated Americans that virus is riskier than vaccines
As the hypercontagious Delta variant rips through undervaccinated parts of the U.S. and shatters hospitalization records in hot spots such as Florida and Louisiana, more unvaccinated Americans continue to say that the COVID-19 vaccines pose a greater risk to their health than the virus, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
In fact, that number has actually grown since Delta exploded onto the scene — a worrisome sign that even surging infection and illness may not be enough to lift America’s middling vaccination rate to a level that could stop future variants from doing the kind of damage that Delta is doing today.
A survey of 1,552 U.S. adults, conducted from July 30 to Aug. 2, found that a full 40 percent of those who remain unvaccinated now believe that the COVID-19 vaccines, which rank among the safest ever produced, represent a bigger threat to their personal well-being than COVID-19 itself — even though more than 52,000 Americans are currently hospitalized because of the virus, nearly all of them unvaccinated, and more than 615,000 have already died from it.
In mid-July, before Delta took off, this number was smaller (37 percent) — meaning that the variant’s subsequent spread has done nothing to persuade most holdouts that the near-zero risks of vaccination are lower than the abundantly documented risks of infection.
Meanwhile, another 31 percent of unvaccinated adults say they still aren’t sure whether the virus or the vaccines pose a greater risk to their health. Just 29 percent say the virus is more dangerous.
More encouraging vaccination numbers have emerged during the Delta wave. Over the last month, for instance, the average number of new daily doses administered nationwide has climbed from a low of 433,000 to a respectable 590,000 as of Aug. 2 — a 36 percent increase, and the highest number since June. Average daily first doses shot up even more — by 88 percent — over the same period. And, significantly, these gains have been concentrated in the undervaccinated states that Delta is hitting the hardest, such as Louisiana — strongly suggesting the variant’s ravages are the reason some former holdouts are finally taking COVID seriously and deciding to protect themselves and others with a safe and effective vaccine.
The problem is that today’s numbers, while welcome, represent just a fraction of the 2 million first doses the U.S. was administering each day back in April. The most recent data also suggests that new inoculations may be leveling off after adding just a point or two to America’s overall vaccination rate (which currently lags at around 58 percent of the population at least partially vaccinated and 50 percent fully vaccinated).
If vaccine uptake is stalling again, the Yahoo News/YouGov poll could help explain why: Delta may have changed a few minds here and there among the unvaccinated — but not all that many.
Exactly half of unvaccinated Americans still say they will "never" get vaccinated, for instance — statistically indistinguishable from the share who said the same in mid-July (51 percent) and in May (48 percent). Most remaining unvaccinated adults insist that they are still waiting to see how the vaccines affect others (21 percent) or that they simply aren’t sure what to do (21 percent) — again, essentially identical to the pre-Delta percentages from May.
When asked last month — before Delta skyrocketed — how the “spread of the more contagious Delta variant” might affect their “likelihood of getting vaccinated,” just 15 percent said it would make them “more likely.” That number is exactly the same today, even though Delta’s spread has escalated dramatically in recent weeks.
Likewise, the fraction of unvaccinated adults who say they would be “much more likely” to get vaccinated if COVID cases, hospitalizations or deaths “start to rise among unvaccinated people in your area” hasn’t budged either. It was about 11 percent last month — and it’s still about 11 percent today.
Some experts have worried that recent news about Delta’s ability to cause breakthrough infections in vaccinated people would undermine confidence in the vaccines and discourage uptake. Asked to rate how well the vaccines are performing, more Americans say the shots are doing an “excellent” or “good” job protecting people from hospitalizations and death (59 percent) than say they’re doing an “excellent” or “good” job protecting people from getting infected (52 percent) or stopping vaccinated people from spreading the virus (44 percent). It’s also true that unvaccinated Americans rate the vaccines much more negatively than their vaccinated counterparts, with 29 percent of the former saying they’re working "worse than expected” versus just 9 percent of the latter.
But the fact is, nearly two-thirds of unvaccinated Americans who say the vaccines are meeting their expectations also say they’re doing a “poor” or “only fair” job protecting people from infection — meaning that unvaccinated Americans don’t seem to have expected much from the vaccines in the first place. Even now, just 8 percent select “some vaccinated people are getting COVID-19” as the most important reason they have not gotten vaccinated yet. Far more (44 percent) say they “don’t trust the COVID-19 vaccines” — the same as last month (45 percent).
Experts say that to reach the level of population-wide protection that could stave off future spikes from dangerous variants like Delta, more than 80 percent of Americans — and perhaps even 90 percent — will need to acquire immunity through vaccination or infection. Given how little Delta seems to have moved the needle, infection will likely continue to play an outsize and often tragic role going forward.
One source of hope for vaccine uptake has been younger Americans; those ages 12 to 15 were only recently made eligible, and those ages 5 to 12 should be eligible by late fall or winter.
But even here, the U.S. seems to be moving in the wrong direction. In May, 59 percent of parents with children under 18 told Yahoo News and YouGov that they planned to vaccinate their kids when the shots were fully approved for minors. Today, just 49 percent — 10 points lower than before — say that their kids are either already vaccinated (16 percent) or that they still plan to get them vaccinated upon full approval (33 percent).
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