vaccine

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.

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By Ken Y-N, ago

Just one in twenty always wear masks for swine flu prevention

Would you yourself want to get a swine flu vaccination? graph of japanese statisticsThis detailed survey from DIMSDRIVE Research into new-type influenza or swine flu, found that surprisingly few people are always wearing masks as a preventative measure. Perhaps there is a degree of confirmation bias in our own personal experiences as mask wearers do stand out, so we remember the definite sightings from a busy day on the train but forget the times when there’s just a couple of masks in the carriage.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 29th of October 2009 13,263 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 54.1% of the sample were male, 0.8% in their teens, 8.9% in their twenties, 28.3% in their thirties, 32.0% in their forties, 19.0% in their fifties, and 11.0% aged sixty or older. Note that this survey was performed during a period when the number of reported cases was rapidly increasing.

Note that the Japanese term is 新型インフルエンザ, shingata infuruenza, new-type flu, but I’ll use swine flu in this translation as it’s easier to understand.

At work we have a bottle of disinfectant at the door that I always use just to show willing, but I don’t use it anywhere else.

I went today to the barber and all the staff were masked up, but no-one seemed to have a cough, but I suppose given the close-up work a barber does the mask is reassuring to the customer.
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By Ken Y-N, ago