61% of Koreans willing to get vaccinated

A survey revealed that the ratio of Koreans willing to get vaccinated dropped by more than 6% than the response rate in March. This appears to be impacted by disputes over the safety of the vaccines over the last two months. However, nine out of 10 people that have received the shots replied that they would recommend vaccinations to others, reflecting relatively high levels of satisfaction.

A survey was carried out by Korea Research at the request of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of 1,000 adults over the age of 18 on the Covid-19 perception. Results showed that only six out of 10 people that have not yet received the shots were willing to be vaccinated.

According to the results, 61.4% of the respondents replied that they were “willing to get vaccinated,” which is 6.6 percentage points lower than the first survey carried out in March. The percentage of those not willing was 19.6%, which is 6.7% higher than the previous survey, while 9% of the respondents replied that they were not sure.

Most people (80.8%, multiple choices permitted) cited “prevent spread of the disease to family members” as the key reason to get vaccinated, followed by “build herd immunity” (66.3%), “prevent personal infection” (59.9%). Meanwhile, the main reason not wanting to be vaccinated was “concerns on abnormal response” (84.1%), followed by “distrust on vaccine effectiveness” (66.8%), “Cannot choose vaccine type (44.8%)” and “feel that the pandemic could be prevented by basic measures” (28.3%).


Keun-Hyung Yoo noel@donga.com