Under One in Four Slovaks Would Be Vaccinated against Coronavirus

Bratislava, October 22 (TASR) – A total of 23.5 percent of the Slovak population would have themselves vaccinated against novel coronavirus, according to the September results of a survey called ‘How Are You, Slovakia?’, which has been monitoring the attitudes of Slovaks since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

Back in April, 41 percent of the respondents said that they would be vaccinated. “The declining willingness to be vaccinated probably results from the growing belief that coronavirus isn’t as harmful as they are trying to tell us. The unwillingness to be vaccinated is also a result of conspiracy theories regarding an artificial origin of the virus and lower trust in institutions,” said Robert Klobucky of the Sociological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences(SAV).

If vaccination was ordered by an employer who would also reimburse the employees’ costs, almost half of respondents would have themselves vaccinated.

The survey found the highest level of willingness to be vaccinated among those who voted for the Progressive Slovakia-Together coalition in the general election (50 percent), followed by voters of For the People (43.8 percent) and Freedom and Solidarity (43.2 percent). Conversely, voters of the far-right LSNS were least willing (12 percent).

“As many as 45.4 percent of those who believe that the virus was transmitted from an animal to a human by accident would have been vaccinated in September,” read the survey results. Conversely, only 11.1 percent of the respondents who believe that the virus was created artificially and spread intentionally would be vaccinated.

The survey was carried out by MNFORCE agency, Seesame communications agency, the Slovak Academy of Science’s (SAV) Institute of Sociology and SAV’s Institute for Research on Social Communication. The most recent sample was taken between September 10-14 from 1,000 respondents.