“Vaccine hesitancy” is referred to as delay in taking vaccine or refusing to take vaccine. During the initial Covid wave, “vaccine hesitancy” —could prove deleterious for the US’ COVID-19 mitigation efforts, making herd immunity difficult to achieve. Researchers have identified various variables such as demographic, political, psychological, and health-based variables associated with vaccine hesitancy that could be used to identify potential hesitancy score of a person. Researchers collected data from 3353 US adults to create a predictive model of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy.

Despite COVID-19 vaccines being available to pregnant women in India since summer 2021, little is known about vaccine uptake among this high-need population. We conducted mixed methods research with pregnant and recently delivered rural women in northern India, consisting of 300 phone surveys and 15 in-depth interviews, in November 2021. Only about a third of respondents were vaccinated, however, about half of unvaccinated respondents reported that they would get vaccinated now if they could. Fears of harm to the unborn baby or young infant were common (22% of unvaccinated women). However, among unvaccinated women who wanted to get vaccinated, the most common barrier reported was that their healthcare provider refused to provide them with the vaccine. Gender barriers and social norms also played a role, with family members restricting women’s access. Trust in the health system was high, however, women were most often getting information about COVID-19 vaccines from sources that they did not trust, and they knew they were getting potentially poor-quality information. Qualitative data shed light on the barriers women faced from their family and healthcare providers but described how as more people got the vaccine, that norms were changing. These findings highlight how pregnant women in India have lower vaccination rates than the general population, and while vaccine hesitancy does play a role, structural barriers from the healthcare system also limit access to vaccines. Interventions must be developed that target household decision-makers and health providers at the community level, and that take advantage of the trust that rural women already have in their healthcare providers and the government. It is essential to think beyond vaccine hesitancy and think at the system level when addressing this missed opportunity to vaccinate high-risk pregnant women in this setting. Methods To understand vaccine uptake, barriers, hesitancy, facilitating factors and sources of trusted information among pregnant and breastfeeding women, we conducted mixed-methods research in northern India in November 2021. In total, we conducted 300 phone surveys and 15 in-depth interviews with women from lower and upper middle-class populations. The eligibility criteria were to include pregnant and recently delivered women who were breastfeeding (up to one year postpartum). The surveys were conducted telephonically. The participants were active members of WhatsApp groups run by a local NGO that was a collaborator on the project. All women in the WhatsApp group were connected to the government health care system, which provides free services. A list of 552 eligible women, from a sample of about 5,000, was provided to the research assistants. Women who were either pregnant or had delivered within 1 year were eligible for the survey. The list included their name, mobile and date of delivery. These women were called one by one down the list provided by the research assistant. Women were read an informed consent and asked to provide verbal consent. A survey call was scheduled based on a time convenient for the women. Most of the surveys were completed in one call and few were done in parts based on the availability of the participant. Out of about 450 women called, 300 complete surveys were taken. Some women did not pick up the call or only completed half of the survey. The team began to take the surveys in the first week of November 2021, and 300 surveys were completed by November 27, 2021. The survey included questions on vaccine acceptance, barriers, hesitancy and socio-demographics.

Vaccine hesitancy and refusal are threats to sufficient response to the COVID-19 pandemic and public health efforts more broadly. We focus on personal characteristics, specifically personality, to explain what types of people are resistant to COVID-19 vaccination and how the influence of these traits changed as circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic evolved. We use a large survey of over 40,000 Canadians between November 2020 and July 2021 to examine the relationship between personality and vaccine hesitancy and refusal. We find that all five facets of the Big-5 (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and negative emotionality) are associated with COVID-19 vaccine refusal. Three facets (agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness) tended to decline in importance as the vaccination rate and COVID-19 cases grew. Two facets (extraversion and negative emotionality) maintained or increased in their importance as pandemic circumstances changed. This study highlights the influence of personal characteristics on vaccine hesitancy and refusal and the need for additional study on foundational explanations of these behaviors. It calls for additional research on the dynamics of personal characteristics in explaining vaccine hesitancy and refusal. The influence of personality may not be immutable.

Background: Along with individual-level factors, vaccination-related characteristics are important in understanding COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy. This study aimed to determine the influence of these characteristics on vaccine acceptance to formulate promotion strategies after considering differences among respondents with different characteristics.Methods: An online discrete choice experiment was conducted among people aged 18–64 years in Hong Kong, China, from 26 to 28 February 2021. Respondents were asked to make choices regarding hypothetical vaccination programmes described by vaccination-related characteristics—the attributes derived from a prior individual interview. Subgroup analysis was performed to identify the differences in vaccination-related characteristics among respondents with different personal characteristics.Results: A total of 1,773 respondents provided valid responses. The vaccine efficacy and brand were the most important factors affecting acceptance, followed by the exemption of quarantine for vaccinated travelers, safety, venue for vaccination, vaccine uptake of people in their lives, and recommendations by general physicians or government. Frequent exposure to vaccination information on social media has been associated with increasing vaccine refusal. Substantial preference heterogeneity for the attributes was found among people of different ages, incomes, chronic conditions, and previous acceptance of influenza vaccines.Conclusion: The findings provided evidence to formulate interventions to promote vaccine uptake, including the provision of vaccination at housing estate or workplaces, involvement of general physicians and interpersonal communication in vaccine promotion and information dissemination, and exemption of quarantine for vaccinated people. Moreover, social media is a significant information channel that cannot be neglected in the dissemination of official information.

Content

The data presented in the Vaccine Tracker are submitted by European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries to ECDC through The European Surveillance System (TESSy) twice a week (Tuesdays and Fridays). EU/EEA countries report aggregated data on the number of vaccine doses distributed by manufacturers to the country, the number of first, second and unspecified doses administered in the adult population (18+) overall, by age group and in specific target groups, such as healthcare workers (HCW) and in residents in long-term care facilities (LTCF). Doses are also reported by vaccine product. The downloadable data files contain the data on the COVID-19 vaccine rollout mentioned above and each row contains the corresponding data for a certain week and country. The file is updated daily. Data are subject to retrospective corrections; corrected datasets are released as soon as processing of updated national data has been completed. You may use the data in line with ECDC’s copyright policy.

• YearWeekISO: Date when the vaccine was received/administered. Only weeks are allowed (e.g. “2021-W01”). [yyyy-Www]
• ReportingCountry: ISO 3166-1-alpha-2 two-letter code
• Denominator: Population denominators for target groups (total population and agespecific population denominators do not need to be reported and will be obtained from Eurostat/UN). Denominators only need to be reported for TargetGroup = “HCW” and TargetGroup = “LTCF”. They should be reported every week for these target groups. [Numeric]
• NumberDosesReceived: Number of vaccine doses distributed by the manufacturers to the country during the reporting week. [Numeric]
• FirstDose: Number of first dose vaccine administered to individuals during the reporting week. [Numeric]
• FirstDoseRefused: Number of individuals refusing the first vaccine dose.[Numeric]
• SecondDose: Number of second dose vaccine administered to individuals during the reporting week.[Numeric]
• UnknownDose: Number of doses administered during the reporting week where the type of dose was not specified (i.e. it is not known whether it was a first or second dose).[Numeric]
• Region: As a minimum data should be reported at national level (Region = country code). Country/NUTS1 or 2/GAUL1/Country specific

• TargetGroup: Target group for vaccination. As a minimum the following should be reported: “ALL” for the overall figures, “HCW” for healthcare workers and age-groups (preferably using the detailed age-groups) ALL = Overall HCW = Healthcare workers LTCF = Residents in long term care facilities Age18_24 = 18-24 year-olds Age25_49 = 25-49 year-olds Age50_59 = 50-59 year-olds Age60_69 = 60-69 year-olds Age70_79 = 70-79 year-olds Age80+ = 80 years and over AgeUnk = Unknown age 1_Age<60 = below 60 years of age 1_Age60+ = 60 years and over

• Vaccine: Name of vaccine. Additional vaccines will be added on approval or as requested. COM = Comirnaty – Pfizer/BioNTech MOD = mRNA-1273 – Moderna CN = BBIBV-CorV – CNBG SIN = Coronavac – Sinovac SPU = Sputnik V - Gamaleya Research Institute AZ = AZD1222 – AstraZeneca UNK = UNKNOWN

• Population: Age-specific population for the country [Numeric]

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Acknowledgements

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

Healthcare workers are at the frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic and have been identified as a priority target group for COVID-19 vaccines. This study aimed to determine the COVID-19 vaccination intention among nurses and midwives in Cyprus and reveal the influential factors that affected their decision. An Internet-based cross-sectional survey was conducted between December 8 and 28, 2020. Data collection was accomplished using a self-administered questionnaire with questions about socio-demographic characteristics, questions assessing general vaccination-related intentions and behaviors, and the intention to accept COVID-19 vaccination. A sample of 437 responders answered the survey, with 93% being nurses and 7% midwives. A small proportion of the participants would accept a vaccine against COVID-19, while 70% could be qualified as “vaccine hesitant.” The main reasons for not receiving the COVID-19 vaccine were concerns about the vaccine's expedited development and fear of side effects. More females, individuals with a larger median age, and a higher number of years of working experience, intended to accept the COVID-19 vaccination, compared with those not intended to accept and undecided groups (p < 0.01). Having a seasonal flu vaccination in the last 5 years, receiving the vaccines recommended for health professionals, and working in the private sector were associated with a higher probability of COVID-19 vaccination acceptance. A considerable rate of nurses and midwives in Cyprus reported unwillingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine due to vaccine-related concerns. Our findings highlight the need for forthcoming vaccination campaigns and programs to tackle coronavirus vaccine hesitancy barriers to achieve the desirable vaccination coverage.

Factors independently associated with plans to receive COVID-19 vaccine when available.

Overall trend in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy/refusal among unvaccinated individuals before, during and after J&J pause from segmented regression model [17, 18].

the dataset contains responses from people in Romania on the reasons for not vaccinating with a covid-19 vaccine

Primary reason for refusal of the COVID-19 vaccine, among unvaccinated respondents, by province.

Distribution of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, hesitancy and refusal among participants with examined variables.

Context: Overcoming the COVID-19 pandemic will require most Americans to vaccinate against the virus. Unfortunately, previous research suggests that many Americans plan to refuse a vaccine; thereby jeopardizing collective immunity. We investigate the effectiveness of three different health communication frames hypothesized to increase vaccine intention; emphasizing either 1) personal health risks, 2) economic costs, or 3) collective public health consequences of not vaccinating.Methods: In a large (N = 7,064) and demographically representative survey experiment, we randomly assigned respondents to read pro-vaccine communication materials featuring one of the frames listed above. We also randomly varied the message source (ordinary people vs. medical experts) and availability of information designed the “pre-bunk” potential misinformation about expedited clinical trial safety.Findings: We find that messages emphasizing the personal health risks and collective health consequences of not vaccinating significantly increase Americans’ intentions to vaccinate. These effects are similar in magnitude irrespective of message source, and the inclusion of pre-bunking information. Surprisingly, economic cost frames have no discernible effect on vaccine intention. Additionally, despite sharp partisan polarization in public vaccination intentions, we find that these effects are no different for Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike.Conclusion: Health communicators hoping to encourage vaccination may be effective by appealing to the use personal and collective health risks of not vaccinating.

Participants demographic characteristics by being offered a vaccine and vaccine uptake.

A logistic regression analysis of not being offered a COVID-19 vaccination.

The barriers of COVID‐19 vaccination among the study participants.

Participants’ beliefs regarding COVID-19 vaccination.

Frequency and percentage of sample within occupation group by ethnic minority grouping.