Abstract
Objectives: China was believed to be the country with the world’s highest acceptance rate of the COVID-19 vaccine following several investigations. This study aims to explore the Chinese acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine before it is made available, including its determinants. Methods: A cross-national online survey was conducted covering all 31 provinces of mainland China. The survey consists of the demographic variables, acceptance of a self-paid COVID-19 vaccine as the dependent variable, and the 3Cs factors (i.e., confidence, convenience, and complacency) as the independent variables. Results: Among the 1,532 participants, 57.9% accepted to get a self-paid COVID-19 vaccine. COVID-19 vaccine acceptors were more likely to be concerned about the effectiveness of the vaccines, believe that they were at risk of COVID-19 infection, have a high perceived susceptibility of COVID-19, and trust in the health care system. Conclusion: Findings indicate that the critical task in the early stage of the COVID-19 vaccine development in China is to increase the tolerance to some intuitive concerns about the vaccines, put more emphasis on the communication of the saliency of the disease threats, and effectively translate people’s trust in the government into vaccine acceptance.
Highlights
The COVID-19 (Coronavirus disease 2019) remains rampant [1]
Odds ratios of the predictors of the COVID-19 vaccine acceptance obtained from previous studies indicated small to medium effect sizes [8, 9], and the sample size of 1,532 was able to obtain a power of 75–80% even with the smallest effect size d of 0.1 for a two-tailed alpha of 0.05 [35]
The concerns about COVID-19 vaccines (Table 1) for most of the participants were side effects (82.3%), the price would be too high (72.1%), and effectiveness (55.1%), while a small portion of the participants were against vaccination in general (3.3%), thought they did not have the time (2.9%), thought they were not enough at risk (11.6%), or thought they did not need to be vaccinated if most people were vaccinated (7.4%)
Summary
There have been second- or even third-wave outbreaks [2, 3]. A global survey on attitudes towards a COVID-19 vaccine conducted by the World Economic Forum in July 2020 revealed that China reported the highest willingness to vaccinate (97%) compared to the other 26 countries—far higher than the world average (74%) [7]. Another global survey of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance conducted in 19 countries in June 2020 showed
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
