Nearly seven in 10 Virginia adults indicate they have been vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet among those who haven’t been vaccinated, 87 percent say they don’t plan to get vaccinated.
Another way of saying, we are where we are, which isn’t far enough.
The numbers are from a new poll commissioned by the Virginia Hospital & Healthcare Association that was released on Thursday.
Statewide, 72.8 percent of Virginia adults have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, according to the latest data from the Virginia Department of Health, with 65.4 percent of the adult population fully vaccinated.
These numbers seem to gibe with the poll numbers, so there’s that.
Factoring in that kids under 12 can’t yet get vaccinated, and those 12 to 18 have only been eligible to receive vaccines in recent weeks, we’re at 60.7 percent of the overall population with one shot, and 54.2 percent fully vaccinated.
Those numbers are well below the 70 percent target set by health officials, and from these poll numbers, we ain’t getting there.
If the poll numbers hold, even if the 13 percent of the currently unvaxxed adults who are open to getting their shots were to follow through, best-case scenario, we get another 4 percent of adults vaccinated.
Meaning: we’re going to need a lot of kids to get vaxxed to get to even 70 percent of the total population.
Those who are unvaccinated offered a range of reasons for not being inoculated, including concerns that the vaccine could cause other health problems (28 percent), doubts about the health threat posed by COVID-19 (22 percent), doubts about vaccines in general (18 percent), a feeling that the vaccine is unnecessary for individuals who have already contracted coronavirus (17 percent), and skepticism about the federal government’s role in vaccine development (13 percent).
This despite the fact that the scientific evidence clearly demonstrates that the vaccines help limit the spread of COVID-19 and protect people from becoming seriously ill, being hospitalized, or dying from the virus.
VDH data shows that since late January when vaccines first became available to the general public in the Commonwealth, 99.4 percent of cases, 99 percent of hospitalizations, and 99.3 percent of deaths have occurred in people who have not been vaccinated.
Reporting those facts is taking sides to people who can’t handle the truth, of course.
The end was near, and now it isn’t.
Story by Chris Graham
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