People in UAE and UK most likely to take Covid-19 vaccine

YouGov poll shows increasing willingness for shot after inoculation campaigns started

Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, March 30, 2021.  Ahmed Osman gets vaccinated at the Biogenix Labs at G42 in Masdar City. 
Victor Besa/The National
Section:  NA
Reporter:  Shireena Al Nowais
Powered by automated translation

UAE citizens and residents are among the most likely people in the world to take the Covid-19 vaccine, new poll results show.

The YouGov survey on vaccine hesitancy showed 87 per cent of people in the UAE said they would receive the injection.

This was second only to Britain, where 90 per cent of those polled were willing to be vaccinated.

Both countries have overseen successful inoculation campaigns, with each approving its first Covid-19 vaccine in December last year.

Scroll through the slideshow for the full results of the survey.

 

The UAE has administered 11.5 million doses, National Emergency Crisis and Disaster Management Authority figures show.

By late April, nearly 40 per cent of the population had been fully vaccinated with two doses.

More than 30 per cent of the UK population is fully vaccinated, with 56.7 million doses administered.

The YouGov poll said vaccine willingness had steadily increased in the UAE since the start of the country's inoculation drive in December.

The figures showed vaccine willingness in the Emirates was 63 per cent on December 16, rising to 78 per cent on February 14, before reaching 87 per cent on April 26.

About 70 per cent of people were willing to receive the Covid-19 vaccine in the UK on December 14, rising to 90 per cent by May 6.

YouGov said young people in the UK aged between 18 and 24 were the country's most vaccine-hesitant, with 23 per cent saying they would not take it.

In comparison, 18 per cent of people in Britain aged 25 to 49 were vaccine-hesitant, falling to 6 per cent of those aged 50 to 64.

Only 3 per cent aged 65 and over were vaccine-hesitant in the UK, the survey said.

The enthusiasm among older people for vaccination reflects their concerns about contracting Covid-19.

They are more likely to be admitted to hospital and suffer more serious symptoms than younger people.

Younger people were also the least likely to have been offered the vaccine under Britain’s priority delivery schedule.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the survey results showed that people in the UK “backed the jab”.

“It is our way out of this pandemic,” he said on Twitter.

“This stellar level of support for vaccines didn’t happen by accident. Huge praise for my team who have worked so hard to get this right.”

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair said on Monday some countries in Africa were rejecting AstraZeneca's Covid-19 vaccine based on "rumours and stuff flying around on the internet".

His comments came as the UN children's fund said that G7 countries, seven of the world's advanced economies, and the EU could donate 150 million Covid-19 vaccine doses while maintaining their own inoculation campaigns.

Only 0.3 per cent of vaccine supply is going to the 29 lowest-income countries –  even though they are home to nine per cent of the world's population, Unicef said.

The gap spurred World Health Organisation chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to ask vaccine-wealthy nations to delay inoculating children and adolescents and instead donate doses to the Covax initiative, a project aimed at providing vaccines to the world's poorest countries.

Covid in the UK – in pictures