Majority of Georgian population doesn't want Covid-19 vaccine – NDI survey

Georgian public largely against vaccination

53% of the population in Georgia does not want to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, show polls conducted by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Georgia on February 17-24.

35% said they would get vaccinated while 12% do not know if they are ready to get vaccinated or not.

Despite the high percentage of negative responses, only 5 percent of those who took part in the survey said they were categorically opposed to vaccination.

The majority of those who refused or have not made a decision yet – 48%, cited the lack of confidence in the quality of the vaccine as the reason.

Another 20% of respondents said they could overcome the pandemic without getting vaccinated. And 10% said they shouldn’t be vaccinated for health reasons.

The younger, the more skepticism

The study found that people under the age of 55 are more skeptical about vaccinations than the relatively elderly.

It also turned out that women in Georgia do not trust the vaccine more than men.

The most reliable source of information is healthcare professionals

With regard to obtaining information about Covid-19 and the reliability of sources, the priorities were as follows:

Medical workers – 74 percent
National Center for Disease Control – 68 percent
Television – 60 percent
Internet – 35 percent

At the very beginning of the vaccination process in Georgia, a tragic incident occurred.

On March 15, the first patients were vaccinated, and on March 18 in the city of Akhaltsikhe, after being vaccinated with the AstraZeneca vaccine, a 27-year-old nurse died. Within 30 minutes of being vaccinated, she went into anaphylactic shock and could not be rescued.

This case is not related to the NDI survey, as the survey was conducted in February. But undoubtedly, this death caused even greater fear and mistrust among the population.

“Now we have to work hard to restore confidence in vaccination. And basically this work will fall on the shoulders of the medical staff. After all, if a doctor or a nurse themselves do not trust the vaccination, they will not be able to convince the population,” Deputy Health Minister Tamar Gabunia told reporters.

According to many experts, the results of the NDI studies show that the government did not carry out an effective advertising campaign for vaccinations and failed to convince people to get vaccinated.

The first batch of coronavirus vaccine – 43,200 doses from the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca – was received by Georgia on March 13. The process began on March 15th. But of the 70,000 health care workers to be vaccinated, only 4,000 were vaccinated in the first week.