BackMore Indians willing to take covid vaccine if political leaders do: Survey
58% Indians still remain hesitant about taking the covid vaccine jab. The survey, which received over 25,000 responses from citizens located in 289 districts of India, stated that 42% Indians are now willing to take the vaccine with the number expected to go up to 65% if government leaders take it.
PremiumWeeks after India kickstarted the world’s biggest inoculation drive on 16 January, vaccine hesitancy in India has dropped by 16% within a month, revealed findings of a new study conducted by LocalCircles, a community social media platform.
58% Indians still remain hesitant about taking the covid vaccine jab. The survey, which received over 25,000 responses from citizens located in 289 districts of India, stated that 42% Indians are now willing to take the vaccine with the number expected to go up to 65% if government leaders take it.
Around 39% of people who are hesitant said that they are ready to take the vaccine if leaders in central and state government, MPs and MLAs (Members of Parliament, and Members of Legislative Assembly) lead by example and take the shot. Globally, US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris, Queen Elizabeth II and UK's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Indonesian President Joko Widodo among others have been publicly vaccinated.
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In India, opposition parties, along with healthcare professionals have urged the government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top leaders, to take either Covishield or Covaxin doses, which could help in drastically reducing trust and fear issues amongst citizens. If leaders take the vaccine, the survey said that the hesitancy levels is expected to drop from 58% to 35%.
The survey revealed that 29% citizens said they will wait up to three months before taking the vaccine. Further, 5% said they will wait 3-6 months, 12% said will wait 6-12 months and 5% said will wait more than 12 months and then decide. Only 2% of citizens said they will not take it at all, while 5% couldn’t say, LocalCircles said.
Meanwhile, 62% respondents said that they want vaccination and adverse event data to be made available for their district. Only 13% citizens say they have access to data related to vaccination centres, daily vaccinations, adverse events in their district.
India is close to inoculating five million frontline health workers.
Since October 2020, LocalCircles has been collecting responses from citizens to know their approach on taking the covid-19 vaccine. The last LocalCircles vaccine hesitancy survey conducted on 25 January, indicated that 60% of citizens were still hesitant to take covid-19 vaccine immediately. These majority of respondents in that survey maintained that they were largely worried about side effects, with a small percentage not sure about its efficacy.
According to Harish Bijoor, brand strategy expert and founder, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc mass vaccination campaigns such as polio have always elicited safety and efficacy related doubts in the minds of people.
"I believe opinion leaders across fields partaking in the vaccine drive will give immense confidence and hope to citizens. A great way to effectively implement the inoculation drive is to make vaccination of political leadership (chief ministers, cabinet and central government) public. Additionally, Bollywood celebrities and cricketers, who enjoy massive fan following, can also help build confidence in the campaign by sharing their experience of taking the jab," he added.
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