COVID-19 Vaccine: 42% Indians Willing To Take Corona Jabs If Govt Leaders Take It First
As per the survey by Community Social Media platform LocalCircles, the vaccine hesitancy in India has dropped by 16 percent within a month, though 58 percent still remain hesitant. The survey adds the percentage of those willing to be inoculated has now gone up from 31 percent to 42 percent in a month.
New Delhi: The trust and fear with regard to the intake of coronavirus vaccines continue unabated in India. A recent survey has found that 42 per cent Indians are now willing to be inoculated provided the government leaders take the vaccines first.
As per the survey by Community Social Media platform LocalCircles, the vaccine hesitancy in India has dropped by 16 per cent within a month, though 58 per cent still remain hesitant. The survey adds the percentage of those willing to be inoculated has now gone up from 31 per cent to 42 per cent in a month.
The survey points out that 39 per cent of hesitant citizens are now ready to take the vaccine if leaders in the Central and State Governments, MPs and MLAs take it.
The survey adds the leaders taking the vaccine is likely to lead to hesitancy levels dropping from 58 per cent to 35 per cent.
The vaccination commenced in India on January 16. As of now, India is close to inoculating five million frontline health workers with either the Covishield or Covaxin vaccine while less than 2,000 adverse events have been reported.
Since October 2020, LocalCircles has been collecting responses from citizens to know their approach on taking the COVID-19 vaccine, aimed to understand if the percentage of reluctance or hesitancy has increased, reduced or remains unchanged along with reasons for hesitancy.
The survey conducted by LocalCircles on vaccine hesitancy on January 25 indicated that 60 per cent of citizens were still hesitant to take COVID-19 vaccine immediately.
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The majority of respondents in that survey maintained that they were largely worried about side effects, with a small percentage not sure about its efficacy.
Amid all the developments, LocalCircles conducted another survey to measure the change in the last one week and to understand what could be some of the step changes to reduce vaccine hesitancy.
The survey received over 25,000 responses from citizens located in 289 districts of India.
In one of the recent adverse cases reported in Telangana, a 55-year-old healthcare worker died 11 days after she received COVID-19 jab.
This was the third post-immunization death reported in Telangana alone. Similar reports have of adverse cases after taking the Covid vaccine have surfaced from across the country.
LocalCircles had earlier indicated that 55 per cent will either defer the vaccination or haven’t yet decided what to do.
In most countries, top leaders in the government have already taken COVID-19 vaccine.
In India, the opposition parties, along with healthcare professionals, have urged the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top leaders, to take either of Covishield or Covaxin doses, which could help in drastically reducing trust and fear issues amongst citizens.
The government has indicated that the Prime Minister and senior central leaders, the Chief Ministers and Members of Parliament above the age of 50 may be inoculated in Phase 2 of the vaccination drive, which may happen in March or April.
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