China a global leader in support for Covid-19 vaccines: survey
- Almost 99 per cent of Chinese respondents said they had received or were willing to get a booster shot in international study
- But the results of the online research could be skewed in favour of city dwellers with internet access, an expert warned
Researchers from the University of Barcelona, City University of New York, Georgetown University and the University of Malaya collected data from 23,000 respondents online – 1,000 in each of the countries across Asia, Africa, Europe and America – in June and July last year.
This is the third year of the study and the results, published in Nature Medicine on Monday, showed about 80 per cent of people worldwide are willing to accept vaccination, a rise of about five percentage points from a year ago.
“Vaccination remains a cornerstone of the Covid-19 pandemic response, but broad public support remains elusive,” said the researchers, who assessed vaccine acceptance and hesitancy among parents and healthcare workers, as well as individuals, along with support for vaccination mandates.
Although the high vaccine acceptance rate in China is generally consistent with previous research, the almost full approval on boosters was “not the case”, observed Huang Yanzhong, director of the Centre for Global Health Studies at Seton Hall University.