Almost one in four Romanians say they don’t plan to get vaccinated against Covid-19 this year, while in ten think the virus isn’t real, a survey showed.
The poll conducted in January by INSCOP Research and the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj, revealed 39.4% didn’t want to get inoculated against the virus. However, 55.2% said they are planning to get the Covid-19 jab, while 5.4% said they were undecided or didn’t want to answer.
Some Romanians are skeptical about Covid vaccine or simply say they are anti-vaccine. Some of the reticence reflects concerns about the safety of a fast-track vaccine less than a year since the pandemic started.
People who said they were either reluctant or outright opposed cited possible side effects (30.9%), while 26.8% expressed a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the jab and 14.7% said they didn’t have enough information about inoculation.
However, 76.6% of respondents said they though the vaccination is the most effective way to ward off the virus, with one-quarter disagreeing with that statement.
About 68.3% said they believed the virus was real and dangerous, while 17.2% think it’s real, but not dangerous. Some 10.4% think the pandemic is an outright lie.
Romania’s government is aiming to vaccinate 70% of the population, or 10.4 million people by September.
So far, the vaccine rollout has been hindered by the disruptions of vaccine shipments vaccines rather than people’s reluctance.
On Monday, authorities said 661,062 had been inoculated since the vaccine rollout began on December 27.
Some 891,000 vaccines have been used of which 855,000 were given Pfizer-BioNTech shots and 35,450 received Moderna shots.
Both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines require two doses to offer the full benefit.
The poll was conducted from January 13 to February 3 by telephone. Some 1,200 people over 18 were interviewed. The survey had a 2.8% margin of error.
