Americans Less Confident They Will Avoid Covid-19—Even With a Vaccination
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The percentage of adults who are "very confident" they will not catch the coronavirus has fallen to 38% after rising to 50% in May and June, according to a Gallup poll.
Confidence among U.S. adults is falling that they can protect themselves from catching Covid-19, as the delta variant pushes positive numbers back up, according to a Gallup survey.
The percentage of Americans who were "very confident" that they would not catch the coronavirus was just 38% at the end of July, after rising to half in May and June. Prior to May, fewer than one-in-four U.S. adults were very confident they could protect themselves from the potentially deadly virus, Gallup said.
Now about half of adults feel "somewhat confident" they can protect themselves from Covid-19 while 10% say they are "not too" or "not at all" confident.
The delta variant is spreading rapidly, and at the time of the survey, 31% of people were very worried about new strains, and 33% were moderately worried.
Concern about community spread is substantially higher among fully vaccinated adults, the Gallup survey found. Almost 80% of those polled are very or moderately worried about the spread of variants.
Growing Concern About Effectiveness
Just 14% of U.S. adults surveyed say they are very confident that the vaccines will protect people from variants, which likely reflects recent reports that some vaccinated adults are getting sick (although usually mildly). Meanwhile, 57% say they are moderately confident and 29% say they are not too, or not at all, confident.
Confidence in the existing vaccines—Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson—is much higher among vaccinated adults than among those who don’t intend to be vaccinated, the Gallup survey shows. Nearly nine-in-10 adults who are fully vaccinated feel very-to-moderately confident that the vaccines will protect them from the variants.
Gallup conducted its most recent monthly Covid-19 tracking study July 19-26. For more information about the survey click here.
Jean Dimeo is the managing editor of Route Fifty.
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