Abstract
Researcher teams around the globe including the "Project Lightspeed" are intensively working on vaccines to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the availability of effective vaccines does not guarantee the vaccination willingness among the population. In spring 2021, we investigated the vaccination willingness and its potential predictors in representative online samples in nine countries (China, France, Germany, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, U.K., U.S.). Of the 9,264 participants, 79.9% revealed Covid-19 vaccination willingness. The highest willingness was in the U.K., followed by Spain and China, the lowest in Russia. In most countries, the perception of governmental Covid-19 measures as useful and the use of television reports as Covid-19 information source positively predicted the willingness. Further factors such as demographic variables, mental and physical health status, evaluation of governmental communication, social media use, and general adherence to Covid-19 measures showed a country-specific predictive pattern. Recommendations how to increase the vaccination willingness are provided.
Highlights
In mid-January 2020, the German biotechnology company Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) started the “Project Lightspeed” in cooperation with two other companies Pfizer and Fosun [1]
We focused on five groups of potential predictors of the vaccination willingness
We focused on the source of Covid-19 information as potential predictors of the Covid-19 vaccination willingness
Summary
In mid-January 2020, the German biotechnology company Biopharmaceutical New Technologies (BioNTech) started the “Project Lightspeed” in cooperation with two other companies Pfizer and Fosun [1]. The project’s main aim was a rapid development of an effective and welltolerated vaccine against the coronavirus disease (Covid-19; severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2) following highly scientific and ethical standards. In November 2020, safety data were available for at least two months after the second dose of the vaccine [1,2,3]. Other researcher teams around the globe work intensively on the rapid development of vaccines against Covid-19. The enormously rapid development of safe and highly effective Covid-19 vaccines is one of the most impressive achievements of biomedical research in recent times.
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