Respondents who were reluctant to get a COVID-19 booster dose cited concerns about the safety or potential side effects as their main reason for hesitancy (59 percent), according to the pollsters’ report titled “COVID-19 Tracking Survey And Focus Groups On Canadians’ Views 2022-23” dated March 2023.
The findings, which were first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, were based on eight focus groups and four separate online surveys nationwide. The health department paid Léger $282,441 for the research.
The report found that 75 percent of Canadians had not felt reluctant to get a booster dose of the vaccine, 22 percent did feel reluctant, and 3 percent were unsure.
The groups most likely to be hesitant included women (27 percent), 18 to 34-year-olds (30 percent) and 35 to 54-year-olds (29 percent), black Canadians (31 percent), parents of children younger than 18 years old (31 percent) and those previously infected with COVID-19 (27 percent).
In addition to concerns about side effects, 18 percent of participants also said they felt the vaccines would not protect them from the virus, 13 percent reported already having contracted COVID-19 or having bad reactions from previous COVID-19 vaccine doses, another 13 percent said they were waiting for updated vaccines that target new variants, and 9 percent felt they were not at high risk from COVID-19 or said they weren’t worried about contracting it.
The survey, which interviewed a total of 3,026 people from across Canada, found the majority of respondents were vaccinated at least once (92 percent). Four in ten had received three doses (41%), and around one in four had either two (23%) or four doses (26%).
Mental Health Impacted
The survey found that 11 percent of Canadians said they sought mental health support at some point during the pandemic, with most receiving in-person support from social workers, psychologists, or other professionals.“One person out of three rated their mental health as average (27%), bad (8%) or very bad (2%). Respondents under the age of 55, parents of children under 18, and those who had been infected with COVID-19 or believed they had been infected were more likely than other respondents to report their mental health as ‘average’”.
Participants noticed a decline in the mental health of people around them during the pandemic, according to the researchers.
“They mentioned the examples of frontline and healthcare workers, the impacts of isolation and lockdowns on mental health, the closing of schools, and return to school’s impact on their children, along with negative news coverage and an increase in violent attacks and domestic violence as examples illustrating this decline,” said the report.
Participants’ personal financial situation (22 percent) and the economy (17 percent) were listed as the most pressing concerns, followed by physical health (9%) and the health of family/friends (9%), mental health (7 percent), uncertainty about returning to normal (6 percent), and new COVID-19 variants (5 percent.)
“Participants at large considered that we were out of the COVID-19 pandemic but were still very much aware of the impacts of COVID on day-to-day life and various institutions,” said the report. “They acknowledged that COVID did not disappear and that some of its effects will be present for a long time.
