A new Reuters/Ipsos poll suggests that more than one-third of America would be less likely to get any vaccine that President Donald Trump endorsed.
According to Reuters, “most respondents in the survey of 4,428 U.S. adults taken between May 13 and May 19 said they would be heavily influenced by guidance from the Food and Drug Administration or results of large-scale scientific studies showing that the vaccine was safe.”
But even with the FDA’s support, 36 percent of Americans polled said that President Donald Trump telling them the vaccine was safe would make them more skeptical about taking it. Further, less than two-thirds of the people questioned are interested in a vaccine at all. In fact, 40 percent of respondents believe the vaccine could end up being more dangerous than the novel coronavirus itself.
“It’s a little lower than I thought it would be with all the attention to COVID-19,” said Vanderbilt University Medical Center infectious disease and vaccine expert Dr. William Schaffner, “I would have expected somewhere around 75 percent.”
It is a dismal number, especially when you consider that studies estimate at least 70 percent of citizens need to be on board before vaccination will provide the needed herd immunity. Trump has claimed that there will be a vaccine available in 2020. While vaccines typically take over a decade to safely develop, testing is already underway.