A recent survey has shown that the Portuguese are among the Europeans who show the greatest desire to be vaccinated against Covid-19, with three out of four expressing this intention when a vaccine becomes available.
A study by the Faculty of Economics of the Universidade Nova de Lisboa shows that 70 percent of Portuguese people are “completely confident” that a vaccine against Covid-19 wouldbe safe, with the percentage of confidence rising in those between 55 and 64 years old, of which 79 percent believe in their safety.
Researchers from Nova SBE joined teams from the University of Hamburg, Rotterdam Erasmus University and Bocconi University to understand how the European population as a whole looks at the pandemic and how much they trust the decisions of policy makers.
For this, they carried out an online study in two phases, which covered, in each one, more than 7,000 participants from seven European countries (Germany, Denmark, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom) taking into account facors such as region, age, gender and education.
Between the first wave of inquiries, which took place between the 2nd and 15th April 2020, and the second, which took place between 9th and 22nd June, the Portuguese remain the Europeans who show greater desire to be vaccinated against Covid-19 (75 percent).
A slight increase in the willingness to be vaccinated (6 percentage points) was observed in the respondents, aged between 55 and 64 years.
“Men are the most willing to be vaccinated (78 percent), as well as individuals with high levels of education (78 percent). In addition, those who know someone officially diagnosed with Covid-19 are more willing to get vaccinated than those who don’t know anyone who has been infected Covid-19 (81 percent vs 74 percent),” says Nova BSE in their study.
Regarding the possibility that the vaccine may not be available in sufficient numbers for everyone to be vaccinated immediately, the majority of Portuguese argued that the priority to whom it should be administered should be defined by a national team of specialists (73 percent), by the health organizations that administer the vaccine (68 percent) and the Ministry of Health (52 percent).
The vast majority of Portuguese think that priority access to a SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus vaccine should be given to people with a higher risk of infection, for example, people who care for someone who is sick with Covid-19 or people in vital professions (91 percent) and the most vulnerable individuals (89 percent).
Overall, most respondents disagree that the vaccine should be administered on a “first come first served” basis (68 percent against).
Two-thirds disagree that people who are generally healthy and live a healthy lifestyle (66 percent against) or who can afford to pay (61 percent against) have priority in receiving the vaccine.
In addition, 42 percent of Portuguese agree that a person’s personal characteristics should not play a role in deciding who gets vaccinated first.
Credit to the Portugal News
