Majority want vaccination, many others want side-effect reassurance

Note: this survey was conducted in February, before vaccination had started in earnest.

This survey from Leading Tech looked at COVID-19 vaccine awareness.

Note also that an overused trope about Japan is its vaccine reluctance with respect to COVID-19 in particular. I attribute this to lazy journalism, as most of the evidence I have seen points to a general acceptance of the necessity of this vaccine, and Japan is not an outlier given that many other countries are finding the last 30-40% of the population difficult to reach, and lets not talk about the politicisation of it in the USA…

As noted above, since the survey was conducted vaccination of the over-sixties has begun without much incident or excessive dwelling by the press on side-effects, and hopefully within a couple of months we can see a significant decrease in serious cases and deaths, this persuading more people that the jab is worth it. In fact, on this evening’s television there was a short report of the latest figures showing even in the youngest age group about 45% wanted to get vaccinated soon, 35% were waiting to see how things go, and just 20% not planning to get it.

For myself, I’ll be getting it as soon as they open up appointments for my age group, which might be mid-August or so. My workplace is also planning on conducting vaccination of the staff, but I don’t know how long it will take to get it all set up.

Research results

Q1: Do you want to get the COVID-19 vaccine? (Sample size=1,200)

Yes (to SQ1)	62.8%
No (to SQ2)	37.3%

By age group

	Yes	No
20s or younger N=279	51.6%	48.4%
30s N=472	62.3%	37.7%
40s N=305	67.9%	32.1%
50s or older N=142	74.6%	25.4%

By information sources

	Yes	No
Television N=1,020	64.8%	35.2%
News site, app N=768	64.4%	35.6%
Newspaper N=260	62.7%	37.3%
Radio N=74	60.8%	39.2%
LINE N=96	59.4%	40.6%
Twitter N=285	57.2%	42.8%
Instagram N=40	47.5%	52.5%
Blog N=24	45.8%	54.2%
Friends and family N=252	55.6%	44.4%
Other N=45	55.6%	44.4%

By household makeup

	Yes	No
Live alone N=229	60.3%	39.7%
With spouse only N=212	64.2%	35.8%
One child N=238	64.7%	35.3%
Two children N=219	66.7%	33.3%
Three children N=56	67.9%	32.1%
Other N=246	57.3%	42.7%

By smoking/non-smoking

	Yes	No
Non-smoker N=1,026	63.3%	36.7%
Smoker N=174	59.8%	40.2%

By underlying conditions

	Yes	No
Underlying condition N=148	69.6%	30.4%
No underlying condition N=1,052	61.8%	38.2%

By perceived risk

	Yes	No
May be serious N=611	65.6%	34.4%
Not be serious N=589	59.8%	40.2%

By knowing COVID-19 patients

	Yes	No
Yes	61.8%	38.2%
No	63.0%	37.0%

Q1SQ1: What is the main reason for wanting to get the vaccine? (Sample size=753)

Protect myself	48.6%
Protect those around me	45.5%
Necessary for work	5.3%
Other	0.5%

Q1SQ2: What is the main reason for not wanting to get the vaccine? (Sample size=447)

Scared of side effects	45.0%
Doubt its effectiveness	23.8%
Don’t want to inject foreign matter	9.2%
Scared of needles	7.5%
Worried about infection at vaccination centre	7.2%
Too much bother	3.4%
Conspiracy by powers-that-be	1.1%
Other	2.9%

Demographics

Between the 19th and 22nd of February 2021, 1,200 people from 18 years old and upwards successfully completed an online survey. 0.8% in their teens, 22.5% in their twenties, 39.4% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 9.9% in their fifties, 1.7% in their sixties and 0.3% in their seventies. 34.1% were full-time company employees, 24.5% homemakers (“housewife” was the term used), 15.3% part-time, 7.0% self-employed, 6.7% unemployed or retired, 5.1% contract employees, 4.1% students, 0.5% civil servants, and 2.8% others.