As COVID-19 vaccines become available to a greater number of Californians, a new poll by the Bay Area Council found that 21% of respondents who have not yet been vaccinated, said they definitely or probably won’t get the vaccine.
The numbers could harm health officials’ efforts to end the pandemic.
The poll found that of that 21%, respondents said that they were either not worried about COVID-19, are already healthy, or fear the vaccines’ negative side effects.
"So, that number seems too high to us because that leaves the entire community at risk, so I think we have our work ahead of us to reach a much higher percent of us," said Jim Wunderman, president and CEO of the Bay Area Council.
The council counts among its members 300 of the largest employers in the Bay Area.
Wunderman said it’s problematic if a significant number of workers don’t get vaccinated.
"From the standpoint of business and government, nature employers, they want to know that people are safe, that people have received the vaccine, so that the other folks who are coming back to work can feel good about it," he told KCBS Radio. "If there’s a fairly significant percentage of people who haven’t been vaccinated, it’s going to make people hesitant."
The highest levels of vaccine resistance were in Marin, Napa and Sonoma counties.
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