Vaccine hesitancy due to vaccine country of origin, vaccine technology, and certification

Dror, Amiel A.; Daoud, Amani; Morozov, Nicole G.; Layous, Eli; Eisenbach, Netanel; Mizrachi, Matti; Rayan, Doaa; Bader, Ahmad; Francis, Shawky; Kaykov, Edward; Barhoum, Masad; Sela, Eyal

Vaccine hesitancy is a global health threat which may hinder the widespread acceptance of several COVID-19 vaccines. Following the collection of 2470 responses from an anonymous questionnaire distributed between October and November 2020 across Israel, we analyzed the responses of physicians, life science graduates (biology, virology, chemistry, etc.), and the general public to whether they would obtain a COVID-19 vaccine with particular vaccine characteristics such as vaccine country of origin, technology, side effect profile, efficacy, and other attributes. Physicians and life science graduates were least likely to accept a vaccine based on mRNA technology (30%) while the general population seemed to adopt any vaccine technology if the declared efficacy is above 90% and the country of manufacturing is the USA/UK rather than China or Russia. However, current inoculation rates in Israel far outpace our predicted rate. Our results highlight the importance of tailored vaccine educational campaigns based on population demographic details and specific vaccine concerns.