Coronavirus: people in China ‘the most willing among 15 countries to take a vaccine’

World Economic Forum-Ipsos survey finds side-effect concern and perception of being at low risk of Covid-19 among reasons for vaccine hesitancy

Data shows American willingness to have coronavirus jab has risen since October poll

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Some 80 per cent of people surveyed in China said they would step forward to take a coronavirus vaccine, the most of any country included in the poll. In America, 69 per cent of respondents said they would be willing to be immunised and in France it was just 40 per cent. Photo: Shutterstock Images

Published: 6:00pm, 30 Dec 2020Updated: 10:42pm, 30 Dec 2020

Chinese citizens are the most willing to get vaccinated against Covid-19 among people in 15 major economies worldwide, according to a new poll by the World Economic Forum.

Eighty per cent of Chinese surveyed said they somewhat agreed or strongly agreed that they would take the shot if a vaccine for Covid-19 were available to them. China led the countries surveyed, closely followed by Brazil where 78 per cent reported they would take the vaccine.

At the bottom of the pack was France with 40 per cent of those surveyed interested in taking the vaccine at the time of polling, while in Russia the figure was 43 per cent.

The poll is the first conducted by the World Economic Forum and market research firm Ipsos since vaccinations started being rolled out in several Western countries, following the emergency use approval of a vaccine made by US firm Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech. It also follows the first approval of a Chinese-made vaccine by Sinopharm in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The survey was conducted online from December 17 to 20 among 13,542 adults. It comes as mass vaccination campaigns are taking shape around the world and vaccine doses are starting to be shipped worldwide – the fastest development of vaccines in history.