49 percent of GOP men say they won’t get vaccinated: PBS poll

Nearly half of U.S. men who identify as Republicans said they have no plans to get the coronavirus vaccine, according to a new PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll released Thursday. 

The study, which surveyed 1,227 U.S. adults from March 3 to March 8, found that approximately 30 percent of Americans overall said they do not plan on getting vaccinated. 

The poll found a higher amount of opposition among Republicans, with 41 percent saying they would not get one of the three federally approved coronavirus vaccines and 49 percent of Republican men saying the same. Fifty percent of GOP men said they would get the vaccine or had already got it. One percent was unsure.

Comparatively, about 87 percent of Democrats included in the survey said they planned on getting the COVID-19 vaccine or had already received it.

Among Republicans overall, 56 percent said they would get the vaccine or already had got the vaccine. 

The hesitancy toward getting a vaccine may provide an obstacle to combating the virus nationally as the Biden administration attempts to ramp up vaccine distribution across the country, including through funding to state and local government through the sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill that President Biden signed into law Thursday afternoon. 

While the PBS/NPR/Marist poll found that about two-thirds of U.S. adults said they either already have or are planning to get vaccinated, Leana Wen, a professor at George Washington University and an emergency physician, told PBS that this may not be enough to reach herd immunity. 

An additional obstacle Wen pointed to is the inequitable distribution of vaccines among communities of color. 

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have reported that Black, Latino and Asian people have been underrepresented among those vaccinated when compared to white populations. 

Thursday’s poll also found that among those who want to get vaccinated but have not yet received a dose include 52 percent of Latinos, 48 percent of Black Americans and 43 percent of white Americans. 

“These disparities do not correct themselves. There needs to be intentional effort,” Wen said. 

As of Thursday, about 19 percent of the U.S. population, or more than 64 million people, have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with roughly 10 percent, or 33.9 million people, fully vaccinated, according to the CDC’s vaccine tracker. 

The approval of Johnson & Johnson’s single-shot vaccine has helped ramp up distribution efforts, adding to the inoculations from Pfizer and Moderna, which each require two doses administered weeks apart. 

Thursday’s study, which included adults residing in the U.S. ages 18 and older, reported a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.