Most vaccine-hesitant people eventually got COVID jab: Study

LONDON

Most people who were initially hesitant about getting vaccinated against COVID-19 eventually received the jab, an England-based study said Thursday, illustrating that widespread public vaccine skepticism can be overcome.

Developed in record time, vaccines for COVID successfully curbed the pandemic after being rolled out in early 2021. The effectiveness and safety of these vaccines have been demonstrated by the billions of jabs administered across the world.

However, before they became available, many people were dubious.

"Most COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy was rooted in concrete concerns that can be addressed and successfully overcome with time and increasing availability of information," the study in The Lancet journal said.

The research was based on questionnaires sent to more than 1 million people in England between January 2021 and March 2022.

Around 8 percent of the respondents were hesitant to get a COVID jab in January 2021, when data about the jabs was mainly from clinical trials and not real life.

However a year later, just 1 percent of the respondents were still hesitant.

Almost two-thirds of the people who were initially skeptical went on to receive at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, according to data from the National Health Service (NHS) cited in the study.

The most likely to change their mind were people who said they were initially worried about whether the vaccine was effective or had concerns about its impact on their health, the researchers found.