Bulgarians’ Vaccination Intent Depends on Education, Age and Place of Residence

One-fifth of adult Bulgarians declare a definite intent to receive a vaccine against COVID-19, show the data from the national representative face-to-face survey conducted by "Exacta Research Group" among 1,005 adults in 90 settlements between 15-22 February 2021.

The most willing to get vaccinated there are people over the age of 40, higher school graduates and the residents of the capital.

Hesitations about immunization have 42% of respondents, and the reasons are different:

• 9% hesitate mainly because of their health problems - allergies, autoimmune diseases, etc. Most of them are women and people of 60+;
• 14% are hesitant because they do not know how effective the vaccines are and how long they will protect them;
• 19% say they need more information about the possible side effects of vaccines on people's health and therefore are not sure how to proceed.
• Nearly 30% of respondents said they had no intention of getting vaccinated. This opinion is shared more often by men, by people within 18-40 age bracket, by residents of small towns and villages.
• 6% of respondents said they already had antibodies and therefore did not consider it necessary to be inoculated. 1.8% said they had already been vaccinated.

Social analysts report a shrinking proportion of definitely unwilling to get a vaccine - from 41% in October 2020 to 29% in February 2021. At the same time, the number of hesitant whether to get vaccines increased by 14% - from 28% at the end of October 2020 to 42% in February 2021.

If this is a lasting trend, then the success of mass vaccination in Bulgaria will increasingly depend on the quality of the awareness campaign, the polling agency said.