More Than Half NYers Hesitant To Get Coronavirus Vaccine: Survey

NEW YORK CITY — More than half of New Yorkers do not plan to be vaccinated against the coronavirus at the earliest opportunity, a Patch survey has found.

Only 49 percent said they would take the inoculation immediately if it was available. Another 33 percent said they would be vaccinated, but only after the medicine had been in use for a long-enough time.

The responses, along with comments submitted to the poll, showed a widely held skepticism about the safety of the vaccine and of the speed at which it has been created and tested.

"The flu vaccine hasn't been perfected after many yrs of researching, now they claim the Covid vaccine is 95% effective after several months only?!" wrote one. "No thanks. I absolutely don't trust this vaccine as of now."

The hesitancy of some was countered by other commenters, who celebrated the vaccine's development.

One wrote: "I plan to get the vaccine for COVID-19 because I trust the scientific process in providing a safe and effective vaccine. I want to protect myself, my community, and would like to do my part to help bring back some normalcy to our situation."

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday that the first shipment is expected to bring 170,000 doses of the vaccine to New York by Dec. 15.

More than 4,600 Patch readers responded to the survey, which is not meant to be a scientific poll, with random sampling and margins of error, but is intended only to gauge the sentiments of our readers in an informal way.

The results are posted below: