Fearing the disease or the vaccine: The case of COVID-19

Abstract

As studies indicate that people perceive COVID-19 as a threatening disease, the demand for a vaccine against the disease could be expected to be high. Vaccine safety concerns might nevertheless outweigh the perceived disease risks when an individual decides whether or not to accept the vaccine. We investigated the role of perceived risk of COVID-19 (i.e., perceived likelihood of infection, perceived disease severity, and disease-related worry) and perceived safety of a prospective vaccine against COVID-19 in predicting intentions to accept a COVID-19 vaccine. Three Finnish samples were surveyed: 825 parents of small children, 205 individuals living in an area with suboptimal vaccination coverage, and 1325 Facebook users nationwide. As points of reference, we compared the perceptions of COVID-19 to those of influenza and measles. COVID-19 was perceived as a threatening disease-more so than influenza and measles. The strongest predictor of COVID-19 vaccination intentions was trusting the safety of the potential vaccine. Those perceiving COVID-19 as a severe disease were also slightly more intent on taking a COVID-19 vaccine. Informing the public about the safety of a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine should be the focus for health authorities aiming to achieve a high vaccine uptake.

Keywords: COVID-19; Coronavirus; Perceived risk; Perceived vaccine safety; Vaccination intentions; Vaccine hesitancy.

Fig. 1

Perceived disease risk and perceived vaccine safety. Violin plots of the responses to the questions on perceived risk of COVID-19 and the perceived safety of a recommended COVID-19 vaccine including dots for means and bars for standard deviations. For Studies 2 and 3, violin plots for influenza and measles are also presented. The outer borders of the violin shapes represent the frequency of responses.

Fig. 2

COVID-19 vaccination intentions. Perceived general severity of COVID-19 (y-axis) plotted by perceived safety of a prospective COVID-19 vaccine (x-axis) in Study 3. The degree to which the respondents report being likely to accept a vaccine against COVID-19 recommended by authorities is represented by blue (response alternative 4 or 5 on the scale ranging from 1[very unlikely] to 5 [very likely]), green (response alternative 3), and red (response alternative 1 or 2) dots. Marginal distributions are represented by rugs. (For interpretation of the references to color in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)