Suan Dusit Poll: most people will get gov’t Covid-19 vaccine

A new Suan Dusit Poll this week reveals that a majority of people in Thailand are willing to be vaccinated against Covid-19 by whatever shot is available from the government. The poll, conducted by Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, surveyed 2,644 people online throughout Thailand between May 17 and May 20 about their opinions on the government’s push to vaccinate people to work towards herd immunity.

The government has been actively promoting vaccination with a variety of registration plans and an informational educational campaign to convince hesitant people that vaccines are effective and safe and that everyone needs to get vaccinated to reach herd immunity against Covid-19 in Thailand so the borders can reopen, and this poll gauges the effectiveness of their messaging.

Only 13.3% of those surveys said they did not want to be vaccinated, while 64.4% said they will take a vaccine provided by the government. 22.3% were undecided. The public does feel fairly educated about vaccines with 29.3% saying they had good knowledge of vaccines and 57.4% saying they had fair knowledge. 3.7% responded to the poll saying that they knew nothing about Covid-19 vaccines and 9.5% were underinformed about them.

Some encouraging news – 56.5% of those surveyed in the poll had registered for a Covid-19 vaccination appointment already, 32.4% had not yet, and 11.1% were undecided about registering. 59.6% worry about side effects but 57.2% believe vaccines help reduce Covid-19 illness and build immunity when polled about their opinion on Thailand’s vaccine rollout. 48.5% wanted a faster vaccination process.

Proving Lampang province’s method of door-to-door education, which has been very effective in registering people for vaccines, 67.7% of those who answered the poll said that medical personnel explaining the Covid-19 vaccine would build their confidence. About 52% agreed that 2 things that would give them faith in vaccination programmes are information about the pros and cons of vaccines (such as warnings, side effects and benefits) and reliable information on how effective the vaccine they are receiving is.

A big question in the modern age of conflicting information, youtube “experts”, fake news, and confusing data is who you can trust for information about Covid-19 vaccines. While 16.6% trusted the World Health Organisation and globally respected medical journals, 31% had faith in the Ministry of Public Health and other government agencies as well as health volunteers. 17.4% relied on TV, radio and social media for Covid-19 vaccine information.

Finally, which Covid-19 vaccine is most trusted according to the Suan Dusit poll? Survey respondents were allowed to choose multiple answers, and Pfizer and Moderna came out on top with 75.1% and 72.1% respectively. Johnson & Johnson ranked 3rd with 68.5% trusting it, followed closely by AstraZeneca at 65.9% and Sputnik V at 61.9%. Sinovac was noticeably missing from the poll responses.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post