Coronavirus vaccine: 6 in 10 Britons say they plan to get Covid-19 jab when it’s available

Only 60 per cent of people in the UK say they plan to get vaccinated against Covid-19 once a jab is widely available, a new poll has revealed.

The Government is working on a campaign to eliminate anti-vax misinformation and reassure the public that any vaccine approved will be entirely safe.

Currently one in five Britons intends to refuse a vaccine with another fifth unsure what they will do, according to the survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies.

Members of the public are also significantly more pessimistic than ministers about the chances of a vaccine becoming available in the near future.

Just 45 per cent believe it will arrive in the next year with most expecting social distancing rules to stay in place at least until the summer.

In development

Dozens of different vaccines are currently in development and one or more could complete its trials within weeks.

Scientific experts and Health Secretary Matt Hancock are planning on the basis of a rollout over the first half of next year, and the UK Government has pre-ordered hundreds of millions of doses from multiple different firms.

Of 3,000 British adults polled by Redfield & Wilton, 60 per cent said they would get vaccinated if a jab is “available at little to no financial cost within the next year”. 19 per cent said they would not and 20 per cent did not know.

In order to reach nationwide herd immunity, with coronavirus no longer circulating in the population, it will be necessary to vaccinate a large majority of people. The exact figure depends on how effective the first vaccine or vaccines are, but expert have suggested a minimum take-up of 70 per cent may be needed.

Ministers are planning a major campaign to promote the use of the vaccine and roll it out as quickly as possible, starting with the most vulnerable and frontline health workers, before proceeding through the rest of the population in order of how at risk they are from Covid-19.

Campaign

Government officials are already working with social media firms to try and prevent so-called “anti-vaxxers” from spreading propaganda online designed to convince people that vaccines are not safe.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “The science is clear – vaccines save lives and are safer and more effective than ever before. We are leading the global effort to find a Covid-19 vaccine, which will only be rolled out once proven to be safe and effective through robust clinical trials and approved by licensing authorities.

“We want as many people as possible to access a Covid-19 vaccine and once approved, the NHS – with the support of the armed forces – stands ready to begin the vaccination programme to those most at risk, before being rolled out more widely. Since the start of the pandemic, specialist UK Government units have also been working rapidly to identify and rebut false information about coronavirus, including working closely with social media companies.

Vaccine candidates

Nearly 200 different Covid-19 vaccines, using a variety of techniques to try and protect the human body against coronavirus, are currently in development.

Of those 11 are in the final stage of trials: having passed safety checks, they have been injected into volunteers to test whether or not they provide sufficient protection against the illness.

The three Western candidates most likely to prevail in the near future are an Oxford University vaccine developed with AstraZeneca, a Pfizer jab and one being made by Moderna in the US. It is possible that one of these could be approved within weeks.

There are also vaccines being trialled in China, Russia and Brazil. Reports suggest that the Russian and Chinese governments have already started administering doses to some groups in those countries, even before the trials are finished.

It could well turn out that the first vaccine to be developed is only partially successful, and that in the coming years it will be replaced by a better one. The speed of development for the Covid-19 vaccines is unprecedented in the history of medicine.

While a vaccine is seen as the most likely way that Covid restrictions can be lifted safely, experts are also working on therapeutics which make the disease much less deadly, and mass testing technology which could allow people to be tested daily with results returned within minutes.

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