Abstract
The emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants and waning vaccine-elicited immunity are two public health challenges that occurred simultaneously and synergistically during the summer of 2021 and led to a surging demand for COVID-19 vaccine booster dose (BD) rollout. This study aimed to evaluate the COVID-19 vaccine booster hesitancy (VBH) among Czech healthcare workers to explore the potential determinants of VBH. A national cross-sectional survey-based study was carried out between 3 and 11 November 2021, using an online self-administered questionnaire (SAQ) that explored the participants’ demographic characteristics, COVID-19 infection and vaccine anamneses, willingness to receive COVID-19 vaccine BD, and the psychosocial drivers of VBH. A total of 3454 HCW properly responded to the online SAQ, of which 80.9% were females, 30.3% were medical professionals, and 50.5% were ≤47 years old. Most of the participants were already inoculated against SARS-CoV-2 (95.2%), and BTN162b2 was the most commonly administered vaccine (90.7%). As the study sample was planned to represent the target population, it revealed a high level of BD acceptance (71.3%) among Czech HCW, while 12.2% were still hesitant and 16.6% were against the currently available BD. These results are consistent with other recent results from central Europe. Medical professional, male, and older participants were more likely to accept BD rather than allied health professional, female, and younger participants. The BDs’ perceived effectiveness against severe illness, symptomatic infection, and community transmission was a significant and strong predictor for BD acceptance, while the effectiveness against the circulating variants was not that important for our target population. The BDs’ perceived safety and ethical dilemmas of vaccine justice should be addressed sufficiently while communicating with HCW and other population groups. The altruistic reasons for BD acceptance, i.e., family protection, patient protection, and community health protection, underpin the recommendation of postponing the COVID-19 vaccine mandating in favour of stressing these altruistic concerns amid public health messaging.
Highlights
The recorded epidemic flare-ups and breakthrough cases had been attributed to two possibilities; (a) the emerging variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), or (b) the waning vaccine-elicited immunity that is challenged by the heightened immune evasion by the circulating variants, e.g., the Delta variant, which were not known at the time of the vaccine development and can partially bypass the protective mechanisms established after vaccination and cause illness, leaving the vaccinated cohorts vulnerable [7,8,9,10,11,12]
This study revealed that a high proportion (71.3%) of the Czech Healthcare workers (HCW) favour the COVID-19 vaccine booster dose (BD), while 12.2% are still hesitant and 16.6% are against the currently available BD
These results are consistent with what had been recently reported by Rzymski et al 2021, who found that 71% of the Polish adult population declared their willingness to receive a COVID-19 vaccine BD, while the rest were not in favour of BDs [23]
Summary
The recorded epidemic flare-ups and breakthrough cases had been attributed to two possibilities; (a) the emerging variants (mutations) of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), or (b) the waning vaccine-elicited immunity that is challenged by the heightened immune evasion by the circulating variants, e.g., the Delta variant, which were not known at the time of the vaccine development and can partially bypass the protective mechanisms established after vaccination and cause illness, leaving the vaccinated cohorts vulnerable [7,8,9,10,11,12]. As both phenomena occur simultaneously and synergistically, the duty of epidemiologic and public health researchers to clarify this foggy scene and provide evidence-informed recommendations regarding the COVID-19 vaccines’
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