New Polls Show Young Adults Are Less Likely To Get COVID Vaccine

New polls state that “young adults” less likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine

A new poll states that younger Americans (i.e. Gen Z and young millennials) are far less likely to take the vaccine than Americans in any other age group, and yes, you’re as shocked as I am.

A new Quinnipiac University poll finds that 68% of Americans plan to or already have gotten a COVID-19 vaccine. On the other hand, 27% of Americans say they haven’t and don’t plan to get the vaccine. Sadly, vaccine resistance in many communities isn’t that surprising and is something most Americans have been aware of throughout the pandemic. However, what is most surprisingly, is that among those under the age of 35, 36% say they don’t plan on getting the vaccine, which is a significantly higher number than the average for all adults (27%). The poll surveyed 1,237 adults and was conducted over the week from April 8 to April 12, before the news about Johnson & Johnson and blood clots was made public.

Also, CNN states that this isn’t the first study in recent months to report similar findings about Gen Z and their vaccine attitudes.

Only 49% of people under the age of 30 said that they would be getting a vaccine as soon as possible or had already gotten one, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation survey, which was conducted just last month.

“I think there is a sentiment amongst younger adults that they are protected against COVID-19 since much focus has been on older individuals and those with comorbidities,” Dr. Krutika Kuppalli, Vice Chair of the Global Health Committee at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, told NBC LX. “That is a misnomer.”

Now, add this to the fact that “younger adults” are driving the recent surge of COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, and the vaccine hesitancy that is now apparently among this group is worrisome.

This is even worse in outlier states like Michigan, where COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing despite the vaccine rollout. COVID cases have been highest among those in their ’20s in Michigan according to state data.

“COVID-19 cases and emergency room visits are up,” CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said earlier this month (via CNN). “We are seeing these increases in younger adults, most of whom have not yet been vaccinated.”

The data also shows that twenty-somethings are also less likely to social distance, which is also corroborated by literally all the celebs, TikTokers, and influencers that have basically partied all pandemic.

Listen, I didn’t start getting the flu shot annually until I was like, 26. It wasn’t because I was anti-vax, it was because I was in my early twenties and was so healthy that any form of health care (even the free kind like a yearly flu vaccine) didn’t cross my mind as a thing I had to do. Combine that with how difficult it is to navigate the byzantine COVID-19 vaccine sign-up system and I can see a lot of twenty-somethings just completely checking out of the whole process. If that’s the case, I seriously hope the government finds a way to get through to this generation. Or as As Nicholas Florko wrote for STAT: “In the Covid-19 vaccine push, no one is speaking Gen Z’s language.”