One-in-Three Brits Unlikely to Have Coronavirus Vaccine: Poll

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, wearing a hair net and face covering, poses for a
PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Kurt Zindulka

Over one-third of the British public say they are unlikely to take the Chinese coronavirus vaccine, a poll from Opinium has found.

The poll found that 35 per cent of respondents are unlikely to take the jab once it becomes available, with 48 per cent reporting concerns about the safety of the rushed vaccine and 55 per cent fearful that it may have adverse side effects.

A further 47 per cent of those polled expressed doubts over whether the treatment will actually be effective in preventing coronavirus infections, the left-wing Guardian reported.

The poll also found that the Labour Party has taken a two-point lead over Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party.

The associate director at Opinium said: “This suggests that any political benefit for the government will likely instead come later on, when people begin receiving the vaccine, life begins to return to normal and the economy can begin to recover.”

On Wednesday, the British government announced that it would be the first Western nation to approve the use of the vaccine developed by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotechnology company BioNTech.

The batch of doses of the vaccine arrived in the UK on Thursday and are expected to begin being rolled out by as early as this week.

The British government has secured some 40 million doses of the vaccine, which would be enough to vaccinate 20 million Britons, as the vaccine requires two injections to be fully effective. The initial rollout will be made up of 800,000 doses.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said that the government will be prioritising the most vulnerable in society, including people over the age of 80, as well as National Health Service (NHS) workers and care home staff.

“We are doing everything we can to make sure we can overcome significant challenges to vaccinate care home residents as soon as possible too,” Hancock said.

While the vaccine minister has said that the jab will not be mandatory, there are increasing signals that British businesses may require so-called immunity passports as a pre-requisite for entering their establishments.

Nadim Zahawi said last week: “I think you’ll probably find many service providers will want to engage in this in the way they did with the [Test and Trace] app.”

On Saturday, a group of scientific advisors admitted that “immunity certification” is “likely to be possible” — though stopped short of officially recommending it to the government.

The government has also reportedly tasked a secretive army unit of the 77th Brigade, the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU), to combat anti-vaccine “propaganda” online. The unit previously was responsible for targeting propaganda from the Taliban and al-Qaeda during the Afghanistan War.

In November, the left-wing Labour Party demanded that supposed fake news about vaccines be criminalised in the country, and the ruling Conservative Party has been pressuring social media companies to remove “conspiracy theories” about the vaccine from the internet.

Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here: @KurtZindulka

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