OHIO, USA — As Ohio hospitals continue to deal with unprecedented numbers of COVID-19 patients, they say the vast majority of them are unvaccinated. Now, a new study shows why Ohioans say they’re not getting the shot.
"Of the main reasons why people aren’t getting vaccinated, the thing that predominately people say over and over again, is they’re worried about side effects,” says Nick VanZant, a senior research analyst for QuoteWizard.
The company has been looking at results from millions of household pulse surveys for months and has broken down the data to show who and why people in each state are hesitant to get the COVID vaccine.
VanZant says, “It is the younger, less educated part of the population that isn’t getting vaccinated. It doesn’t really go across race, ethnicity or demographic lines.”
The Ohio Department of Health says around 40% of the state’s population hasn’t received any dosage of the vaccine.
In QuoteWizard’s data, people could fill out multiple answers to why they won’t get the shot, so the numbers surpass 100%. Here’s how those vaccine-hesitant people break down in Ohio: 16% say they are waiting to see if it’s safe, 26% don’t believe COVID is a threat, 41% don’t trust the government, 46% don’t trust the vaccines, and 50% say they’re worried about side effects.
“We’ve not had anyone come in with any significant issues associated with the vaccines,” says Dr. Abhijit Duggal, the vice-chair of the department of clinical care at the Cleveland Clinic.
Dr. Duggal says they and other doctors around the world continue to look at the data, not just from clinical studies, but hundreds of millions of real-world recipients of the vaccines and can say: it’s safe.
“The numbers that we see in terms of reactions or other immune responses happening is lower than we have seen in other vaccines,” says Dr. Duggal.
While the reasons Ohioans are not getting vaccinated compare similarly to those around the country, VanZant says there are a few places where the results stood out.
“Ohio had a higher number of people that said they did not trust the vaccine and also a large number of people who said they did not trust the government,” says VanZant.
Dr. Duggal says, “Looking at this in an unbiased fashion, the evidence very, very clearly shows vaccines are safe and vaccines are effective.”
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