CT Patch Survey: Will You Take The Coronavirus Vaccine?

CONNECTICUT — With about 94,000 doses of the coronavirus vaccine expected to arrive in Connecticut before Christmas, Patch wants to know: will you take it?

Frontline health care workers and elderly people in long-term facilities will be the first to receive the vaccine, Gov. Ned Lamont said earlier this week. There are 204,000 health care workers, 22,000 nursing home residents and 6,000 medical first responders who fall into the state's first vaccine priority group.

For the rest of us, Lamont said that distribution of the vaccine will be free and via drive-thru, similar to the way coronavirus testing is done throughout the state now. That kind of widespread availability won't be in place until the first or second quarter of the new year, the governor said.

That's still too soon for some folks.

There is hesitancy in the Black and Hispanic communities to queue up for the vaccine, according to a poll conducted by COVID Collaborative, Langer Research, UnidosUS and the NAACP. Even many health care workers who would have priority say they will be more comfortable at the back of the line for a vaccine rushed to market during an election year.

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To develop the herd immunity necessary to halt the spread of the virus, a sizable percentage of the population will need to be inoculated, especially since no vaccine is ever 100 percent effective.

Gov. Ned Lamont has said he has no plans to make vaccination mandatory.

"By far the best way to get this is on a voluntary basis," he said.

Of course, the state won't have to worry about requiring vaccination if your employer does.

So what'll it be for you? Vax or no vax? Do you plan on taking a coronavirus vaccine as soon as possible? Has the politicization of the vaccine and virus impacted your feelings on it?

The survey is not meant to be a scientific poll, with random sampling and margins of error, but is meant only to gauge the sentiments of our readers in an informal way.