A recent survey from Healthier Colorado found that 40% of participants said they would not or were unsure whether they would receive the COVID-19 vaccine. 

In the survey, 1,008 Coloradans who had voted in the recent election were asked multiple questions about a variety of topics including COVID-19, affordable housing and wildfire policies. The questions were asked online or through text messaging from Nov. 18 to Nov. 24.

A question asked participants: When an FDA-approved vaccine to prevent coronavirus/COVID-19 is available and at no cost to you, do you plan to receive the vaccine?” 

The Healthier Colorado survey found that men are 5 percentage points more likely to say that they would receive the COVID-19 vaccination than women, college educated participants are 16 percentage points more likely to say they’d be vaccinated. A total of 70% of Coloradans 65 years or older said they would receive the vaccine. 

The results are not too surprising  — but they are worrisome, said Kyle Piccola, the director of communications for Healthier Colorado. 

“What we saw in the poll is that there are still quite a bit of Coloradans who aren’t confident in taking the COVID-19 vaccine yet, and that’s worrisome for us,” said Piccola. 

A recent AP-NORC poll found similar results nationally, as only 50% of its participants said they would receive the COVID-19 vaccination.

Researchers from Magellan Strategies and Keating Research, who gathered and analyzed the data for Healthier Colorado, found that Republican woman are the least likely to be vaccinated at 45%. 

Seventy-six percent of Democrats who participated said they plan on receiving the vaccine compared to 42% of Republican participants. 

“There’s this disparity of more than 40 points where Republicans are at, and where basically everyone else is at,” said Chris Keating, the president of Keating Research. 

Aside from political affiliations, the survey also found that Black and Hispanic populations — populations greater affected by the virus — are less likely to say they will receive the vaccine than white participants.

“If we juxtapose this with the people who are really adversely affected by the pandemic, these are the same groups,” Piccola said. 

Fifty-two percent of Black participants and 56% of Hispanic participants said they would receive the vaccine.

Piccola said in order to have the public trust a COVID-19 vaccination, local governments need to step up in place of the Federal government.

“The CDC has said they’re not developing a specific nationwide competence campaign in this, so if they’re not going to do it, it really leaves the states the opportunity to create their own comprehensive, inclusive messaging campaign to build the confidence in the COVID-19 vaccine,” Piccola said.

“If we’re not planning to do that soon, we fear that this recovery might take a lot longer than we all hope it would take.”

Despite the numbers not being at 70% — the number Healthier Colorado would like to see to achieve herd immunity — Keating says that 60% of participants saying they will receive the vaccine is positive.

“We have an opportunity, we haven’t even started to give out a single vaccine yet besides the trial, so we have a real opportunity here and I’m very optimistic that we can (achieve 70%),” Keating said.

“We really need to depoliticize this and this is about everyone pulling together, and that’s the Colorado way. We believe in our leaders and we trust that they can get the job done.”