PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — According to a new poll, vaccine hesitancy among African-Americans is now on par with reluctance among white Americans.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll includes responses from more than 1,200 adults from across the country.
Seventy-three percent of Black Americans and 70% of white Americans surveyed said that they either planned to get a coronavirus vaccine or had done so already. Twenty-five percent of Black and 28% of white respondents said they did not plan to get a shot. Latino hesitancy was slightly higher at 37%.
Studies have shown Black people are three times more likely to get COVID-19 and die from the virus than white people. Rumors and fear about getting the vaccine swarmed Black communities early on.
Any hesitation appears to have waned significantly in Philadelphia.
Dr. Ala Stanford, founder of the Black Doctors COVID-19 Consortium, celebrated in the middle of Broad Street on Sunday. The group reached a milestone of vaccinating 25,000 people in just over a month.
Eighty-two percent of people vaccinated by the group were people of color.
"Our biggest impact was to make sure that the communities that were hardest hit were the communities that were served," she said.
In January, only 10% of those vaccinated were Black; that number is now up to 24%.
Another portion of the national poll found 49% of Republican men surveyed said they would not get the shot, whereas only 6% of Democratic men would not get the vaccine. Similarly, those in cities were more likely to want the vaccine than those in rural areas.
