According to a new The Economist/YouGov poll, Americans who reject vaccines are more likely to believe it’s safe to travel amid the coronavirus pandemic than those who are in favor of vaccines.
In the poll, 29 percent of respondents who have already been vaccinated said they believe it is safe for them to travel within the United States. Conversely, 51 percent of those who do not plan to get vaccinated said they think it is safe for them to travel.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only fully vaccinated Americans should travel.
Anti-Vaxxers Reject Recommendations
Of those who are opposed to vaccines, 52 percent said it is safe for them to socialize and another 45 percent said it is safe for them to not wear masks that protect against COVID-19.
Half of anti-vaxxers in the poll said they rarely or never wear a mask in public, while 41 percent said they are not worried about contracting the deadly virus.
The poll also found that 51 percent of anti-vaxxers believe coronavirus poses little risk to them.
Overall, however, only 30 percent of Americans think its safe to socialize and just 20 percent reject masks.
Anti-Vaxxers Have No Confidence In Fauci, CDC
Those opposed to vaccines have little confidence in public health officials, the CDC and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, according to the poll.
However, the survey found that anti-vaxxers trust advice from former President Donald Trump, who has criticized Fauci and other top officials.
Forty percent of Republicans in the poll said they do not plan to get vaccinated and only eight percent of Democrats agreed.
The vast majority of senior citizens in the survey said they want to get vaccinated or already have been.
Fauci Has Described Vaccine Skepticism As ‘Quite Concerning’
At a February conference hosted by the Financial Times, Fauci described vaccine skepticism in the United States and elsewhere as “quite concerning,” according to The Evening Standard.
“It is kind of like a self-amplifying problem that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And people who have certain fixed thoughts and fixed opinions about something as significant as vaccines to take or not to take … they can cause an extraordinary amount of difficulty by amplifying that on social media and on the internet.”
Coronavirus Fatigue
Fauci recently conceded that Americans are becoming increasingly apathetic about behaviors that mitigate coronavirus, but said that life will soon begin to normalize if everyone takes necessary precautions.
As The Inquisitr reported, Fauci stressed that government officials and ordinary Americans need to “just hang in there a bit longer” until most people are vaccinated.
“People say, ‘Well, you just want to confine us forever.’ No, this is not going to last forever, because every day that you get four million, three million people vaccinated, you get closer and closer to control,” he told CNN.
