Pfizer and BioNTech announced a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that has been found to be more than 90 percent effective against the virus in patients that haven’t previously been infected. While this is the biggest indicator related to a potential vaccine distribution since research began, new survey data shows global confidence in the potential efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine is slowly falling.
In a new survey of 15 countries by Ipsos, the number of adults who said they’ll definitely take the COVID-19 vaccine has fallen slightly between the months of August and October for most countries. Confidence in a vaccine fell furthest among Chinese respondents, with 97 percent in August who said they’ll definitely take a vaccine dropping to 85 percent in October. Other countries like Brazil and Australia had similar drops, while the U.S., U.K. and Japan saw smaller drops in confidence.
Among those surveyed, just over half said they would get a vaccine within three months of being made available. Another 22 percent said they would get it immediately, while 10 percent said they would get vaccinated within a year. Overall, 28 percent said they would not get vaccinated or would not get a vaccine within a year.
Pfizer’s announcement also included a rough timetable for when the company expects to mass produce and distribute vaccines. The company said they aim to distribute 50 million vaccines by the end of the year and reach roughly 1.3 billion vaccines in 2021. The research data will be submitted for peer-review across scientific publications. Pfizer CEO said in an interview that the company plans to sell the vaccine relatively cheaply to governments and expects many countries to offer the vaccine for free.
This chart shows the percentage of adults who said they would definitely get a COVID-19 vaccine if it were available.
