Don’t worry if you feel confused, unsure, or fearful of COVID-19 vaccines.
You are not alone.
A new Gallup poll, released Monday, shows that most Americans wildly mistake much of the information about the nastier effects of the virus.
Gallup noted that last month it asked nearly 3,200 adults two basic questions:
What percentage of unvaccinated people have been hospitalized due to the coronavirus? What percentage of fully vaccinated people have been hospitalized due to the coronavirus?
“For both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations, very few adults reported a correct answer,” Gallup reported. “Only 8% of U.S. adults gave correct answers for the unvaccinated population and 38% for the vaccinated population.”
The pollster noted that the respondents’ political party affiliation factors into the response, which may reflect how President Joe Biden’s often contradictory COVID-19 policies are interpreted and explained by both the administration and the media.
For instance, when asked what percentage of unvaxxed people end up in the hospital, 41 percent of Democrats claimed the outcome was 50 percent or more. That compared to just 26 percent of independents and only 22 percent of Republicans.
Scaling down a bit, another 38 percent of Democrats pegged the ratio for the unvaxxed at between 10 percent and 50 percent. In comparison, 34 percent of independents and 32 percent of Republicans fell into that category.
The correct answer, according to Gallup, is about 0.89 percent of unvaccinated people wind up hospitalized because of COVID.
Gallup observed that, given the CDC’s claims about the efficacy rate of the shots, Democrats were better than Republicans in characterizing hospitalization rates among the vaxxed.
The pollster calculated the hospitalization rate for those who got jabbed at 0.01 percent. Among Democrats, 41 percent said fewer than 1 percent of them wound up in the hospital, compared to 33 percent of Republicans and 37 percent of independents.
On the other end of the scale, only 6 percent of Democrats said 20 percent or more of the vaxxed would be hospitalized, while 20 percent of Republicans and 13 percent of independents gave a similar answer.
“Given previous studies on the effects of the media and information during COVID,” Gallup noted of that response, “one possible reason is that Democrats are more consistently exposed to information that favorably portrays vaccine efficacy.”
Summing up the results, Gallup observed, “Democrats are more likely to overstate hospitalization risks for unvaccinated people, which may fuel efforts, often led by Democratic Party leaders, to enforce both mask and vaccine mandates. At the same time, Republicans overstate risks to vaccinated people, leading to very low vaccine efficacy estimates. This may be one of the reasons that so many Republicans have been reluctant to get the COVID-19 vaccine.”
“Previous research links these behavioral patterns to differences in information exposure,” the pollster concluded. “If so, vaccine acceptance is unlikely to significantly increase among Republicans until their trusted media or other information sources emphasize the benefits of vaccination.”
On the other hand, Gallup failed to explain two critical points.
First, some of the highest vaccine-hesitancy rates in the country are among black Americans, relatively few of whom are either registered as Republicans or heed conservative media.
Gallup’s other shortcoming was to point out that draconian crackdowns on unvaccinated people in blue states, such as firing healthcare workers and first-responders who don’t get the shot and demands that the unvaxxed be socially excluded, are driven by a fear of them created by politicians and media that refuse to discuss natural immunity and the prevalence of asymptomatic spread, and that bypass other data, such as reports that 59 percent of Israeli COVID hospitalizations are fully vaxxed, as are a majority of Floridians who seeking treatment at some of their state’s monoclonal antibody centers.
- Florida Gov. DeSantis Takes Action to Protect State From Impacts Of The Biden Border Crisis
- Trump, RNC Blast Biden And Milley After Armed Services Hearing
- Americans’ Trust In Biden To Provide Accurate COVID Info At All-Time Low: POLL
- Florida Woman Wins $2,000,000 On Mega Millions Ticket From The ‘Prip Mart’
- College Student Fights Off Sexual Assault Attacker, Boys Jump From Window To Help Her
Support journalism by clicking here to our GoFundMe or sign up for our free newsletter by clicking here
Android Users, Click Here To Download The Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. It’s Free And Coming To Apple Users Soon