A citizen gets a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine shot at a hospital in Yangsan, some 420 kilometers south of Seoul, on March 3, 2021. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — Close to one-third of South Koreans do not wish to receive an additional shot of the COVID-19 vaccine, even if the next wave of a pandemic is coming, a poll showed Wednesday.
A research team from Korea University conducted a nationwide survey of 1,500 men and women over 19 years of age, in which 46.7 percent said they would get an additional shot of the COVID-19 vaccine if new coronavirus cases surge again in the fall or winter of this year.
The data also showed, however, that 30.5 percent did not want to receive any additional inoculations.
Among the respondents, 62.9 percent said they had experienced side effects from the vaccine while 15.2 percent had reported the side effects to authorities.
On the follow-up measures provided to address such reports, only 24.4 percent were satisfied while 47.4 percent said they were dissatisfied.
Younger people with higher educational attainment and income tended to be more dissatisfied with the follow-up measures.
Only 40.7 percent of respondents believed that the information provided by the government, pharmaceutical companies and other agencies was trustworthy.
“There is a significant gap between age, income and regional groups when it comes to their views on the effectiveness of the vaccines, the level of trust towards information provided by the government, willingness or unwillingness to take further inoculations, and their perceptions about the conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccine,” said Prof. Chun Byung-Chul, an epidemiologist at Korea University.
H. M. Kang (hmkang@koreabizwire.com)
