Majority of Canadians want COVID-19 shot as soon as possible: survey

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — More Canadians want to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as soon as possible, according to polling data.

The Angus Reid Institute has found at least 60 per cent of Canadians want the shot as soon as they can get it, marking a 12 per cent jump from December.

(Courtesy Angus Reid Institute)While there are still concerns about side effects and long-term implications, most people are more confident than anxious at this point.

Since the Pfizer-BioNTech and then the Moderna vaccines were approved in December, Canadians have been able to see the distribution start with healthcare workers and B.C.’s top doctor getting their first shots, as well as high-profile officials, like Queen Elizabeth II.

According to Angus Reid, seeing more people get the shot along with relatively few cases of severe side effects appears to have a normalizing effect on people’s willingness to receive a vaccine.

“While an increase in demand may provide challenges for governments and distribution networks to deliver the vaccine in an orderly and timely fashion, it will likely help to quell some of the concerns about vaccine skepticism, which have emerged over the past six months,” the survey reads.

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Meanwhile, 52 per cent of Canadians are critical of the speed of vaccinations, saying they think they’ll have to wait too long to be immunized.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with premiers last week to discuss concerns about the pace of vaccinations across the country. He said about 1.3 million doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines should be in Canada by the end of the month.

B.C. plans to immunize 150,000 people by February, starting with healthcare workers and long-term care residents. The province has outlined plans to have most people vaccinated by the end of this year.