Three in four people say COVID-19 vaccines effective and safer than getting virus A national probability Annenberg Science Knowledge survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center finds that about 15% of people are uncertain about the vaccine, but persuadable.
More than 259 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine have been given in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through May 10, 2021. As of May 5, 2021, well over half a million deaths 576,238 people have been reported from COVID-19 in the United States.
Yet public health officials have expressed concern that many U.S. communities may not be on track to reach the level of immunity required to halt the replication and hence the mutation of SARS-CoV-2. The rate at which Americans are being vaccinated is slowing. Faced with a lack of demand, some vaccine sites have closed. In some places, vaccines are going unused.
Conspiracies beliefs about COVID-19 increased among users of conservative and social media
Belief in conspiracies about the COVID-19 pandemic increased through the early months of the U.S. outbreak among people who reported being heavy users of conservative and social media, a study by Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) researchers has found.
Prior APPC research found that people who regularly used conservative or social media during the early months of the pandemic were more likely to report believing in a group of COVID-19 conspiracies. The current study expands on that, finding that a reliance on conservative or social media actually predicted an increase in conspiracy beliefs from March to July 2020.
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PHILADELPHIA - Belief in conspiracies about the COVID-19 pandemic increased through the early months of the U.S. outbreak among people who reported being heavy users of conservative and social media, a study by Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) researchers has found.
Prior APPC research found that people who regularly used conservative or social media during the early months of the pandemic were more likely to report believing in a group of COVID-19 conspiracies. The current study expands on that, finding that a reliance on conservative or social media actually predicted an increase in conspiracy beliefs from March to July 2020.
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Concerns over infecting others play a greater role in people s willingness to be vaccinated in sparsely populated areas than dense urban ones, according to newly published findings in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (
PNAS) of the United States.
Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania examined people s behavior getting a flu vaccine as well as their future intentions to be vaccinated against the flu and COVID-19.
Given that they encounter more people and have a greater risk of transmitting disease, it might seem that people in urban environments would be more highly motivated to vaccinate because of prosocial concerns - to protect others. But that is not what the research found.