Most unvaccinated Americans say they’ll refuse to get a COVID shot, poll finds

A majority of Americans who haven’t gotten vaccinated said in a new poll that they won’t get a COVID shot.

In The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Tuesday, 64% of respondents said they have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine and 35% said they haven’t.

Of the respondents who haven’t gotten a shot, 61% said they wouldn’t get a COVID vaccine, with 34% saying they would “definitely” not get a shot and 27% said they “probably” wouldn’t.

Meanwhile, 38% said they would get a shot, with 11% saying they will “definitely” get vaccinated and 27% saying they “probably” will.

Respondents are less willing to get vaccinated than they were when surveyed March 25-29 when 43% of Americans who weren’t vaccinated said they won’t get a shot compared with 61% in the latest poll.

The number of unvaccinated people who said they will probably or definitely get a shot also decreased, from 57% in March to 38% in the latest survey.

President Joe Biden is meeting with state governors Tuesday afternoon to discuss how to get more Americans vaccinated.

Biden has set a goal of having at least 70% of Americans receive one dose of the vaccine by July Fourth and fully vaccinating 160 million people by then, PBS reported.

As of May 10, at least 152.8 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, including at least 115 million people who have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Forty-six percent of the population has received at least one dose.

People are also less worried about getting infected with the coronavirus. In the poll, 24% of respondents said they were “extremely” or “very worried” that they or a family member may get infected compared with 35% who said the same a month ago.

Meanwhile, 47% of Americans said they were “not too” or “not at all worried” about getting sick compared with 32% who said the same in last month’s poll.

The most recent survey was conducted April 29-May 3 with a sample size of 1,842 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.

There are more than 32 million coronavirus cases in the U.S. as of May 11 and more than 582,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

This story was originally published May 11, 2021 at 1:50 PM with the headline "Most unvaccinated Americans say they’ll refuse to get a COVID shot, poll finds."