In Jan. of 2022, 3472 Australians over 18 were surveyed on booster hesitancy, the group have been a consistent sample group for the university and was previously surveyed in Jan. to Feb. 2020; prior to the pandemic as well as in 2021, to track participants’ change in attitudes to COVID-19.
Analysis of the survey found that of the people who have received their first or second doses-95.2 percent of the respondents-65.4 percent confirmed they will get a booster; a drop compared to the 71.9 percent in Oct. 2021 prior to booster rollouts.
An increase in the negative response to booster shots have also been observed with 11.5 percent of participants responding with no to boosters; 3.9 percent giving a probably not and 7.5 giving a definite negative. In Oct. 2021, however, only a total of 6 percent of participants gave a negative response.
Overall, the demographics that reported the lowest booster uptake was within the younger age group of 18-24, with higher age groups having higher odds of being triple-jabbed.
Additionally, Australians from lower education and socioeconomic background were also linked with lower booster uptake.
The authors of the study Professor Nicolas Biddle and Kate Sollis also analysed respondents’ source of information for COVID-19 and their attitude to political opinions, to find a link with booster hesitancy.
They found the group with the lowest booster uptake utilised no source of information for COVID-19. There was no significant correlation for groups that sourced their friends and family and social media and booster hesitancy.
Therefore, the authors concluded that booster hesitancy was “due to lack of information, rather than misinformation,” a trend that was observed in vaccine hesitancy for the first dose.
Nonetheless, linking information from social media and friends and family to misinformation is rather presumptuous as the poll did not divulge into the perspective of the social media sources and friends and family.
To test for “populist attitudes” with booster hesitancy, respondents were given statements such as “what people call compromise in politics is really just selling out on one’s principles; most politicians do not care about the people; most politicians are trustworthy; politicians are the main problem in Australia,” and other statements, then asked to agree or disagree.
The authors found little correlation between the response to the statements and booster uptake therefore concluded that booster hesitancy was not linked with “vaccine resistance.”
But linking populism attitudes to vaccine resistance can be a broad assumption to make considering resistance can be due to other reasons such as anti-mandate sentiments which was not reflected in the statements given.
However, Biddle and Sollis did mention that the survey was procured during a series of anti-mandate protests in Canberra and noted that whilst the Australian vaccination numbers are high, there are still many people who resist getting vaccinated as they feel vaccination should not be “a requirement legislated by a government.”
The authors encouraged the need to “reach out” to the demographics that are resistant to boosters and “take their concerns seriously, and to reduce ongoing barriers for these groups.”
The analysis of the survey also suggests “that there are lower rates of booster uptake” than expected despite high vaccination numbers in Australia, implicating possible low booster rates to come for the country.
