63% of Americans show concerns about a Covid-19 vaccine: YF-Harris Poll

Americans are split on whether or not a vaccine will end the Covid-19 crisis, according to the latest YF-Harris poll. Yahoo Finance’s Ethan Wolff-Mann shares the details.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: We've got the latest now on the Yahoo Finance partnership with Harris Polling and our latest question that we asked Americans about whether a vaccine is truly going to end the COVID-19 crisis, and it looks like there is a split here in terms of opinion. Ethan Wolff-Mann is with us now to talk us through this more, so give us the numbers, Ethan, and sort of what's behind all of this.

ETHAN WOLFF-MANN: So one of the things that we found was that, you know, while a vaccine has been positioned I think by a lot of people as this big panacea that will solve all of this, you know, coronavirus economic and health crisis, a lot of people are a little bit concerned that that may not actually happen and are taking kind of a more pessimistic approach. Now, this question was asked also with, you know, universal access, so everybody in this situation would have access. But a lot of people really think that it might be a little more complicated than that.

And that's something actually that we've seen reflected through some things that, you know, professionals and experts have said. It's kind of cautioning us to think that this will solve everything based on the timeline that we've, you know, had that's been so accelerated. The vaccine may not, you know, be 100% effective. In fact, the FDA says they'd probably approve it if it's 50% effective as long as it's safe. So I think all these people in the country who have been hit by the coronavirus are trying to manage their expectations.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Ethan, my question is jilted, but I got to ask you, did they filter out flat earth kind of people who just don't believe science? I'm serious about that, because that will skew the results.

ETHAN WOLFF-MANN: So the "they" was with me. I specifically made this question about trusting of the vaccine phrased as, do we trust this any less than we would trust other vaccines? So kind of self-select, you kind, of adjusting for the anti-vax movement. And essentially, people are definitely concerned about this vaccine who may not usually be concerned about vaccines in general. It seems to be less about safety since we also asked them whether they have confidence in the FDA to approve, you know, to make sure that it's safe. And well over, you know, about 2/3 of people said that they at least thought would be safe.

So I think that the differences is maybe in effectiveness since, you know, the FDA might approve something, even if it's not as effective as we might want. But you know, a lot of this actually falls on, you know, demographic lines. Men seem to be much more optimistic than women that, you know, the accelerated vaccine process is safe and will be effective, and richer people making over $100,000 have a more sanguine view of things. And you know, communities of color, and [? specifically ?] Latino and Black communities who have seen some serious damage disproportionate over there are also a lot more pessimistic on the future. So it'll be interesting to see exactly, you know, whether these views change over time. We'll probably revisit this again.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, and I think California became the latest state to say it's going to do its own vetting of a coronavirus vaccine, even if it's approved by the FDA. Thank you so much, Ethan. Appreciate it.