As was previewed last week, a POLITICO-Harvard survey is out when it comes to various aspects of the Wuhan coronavirus. The results last week showed that a majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats, believe that the virus originated from a lab leak. On Sunday, the results of vaccine mandates were released, which shows how "almost evenly divided" Americans are on the issue, prompting Dan Goldberg in his POLITICO write up to note that this poll "shows how politically fraught any kind of mandate would be."
While a majority of respondents, at 50 percent, favor "Requiring Public-School Students Aged 12 or Older to Be Vaccinated Against Covid-19 Before They Can Attend School in Person," the statistically same amount oppose, at 49 percent. However, a strong majority, at a whopping 70 percent, of parents of children ages 4-17 support such a mandate.
The statistical difference is perhaps so small because while the support from Democrats is 62-37 percent, a majority of Republicans oppose, with 60 percent opposing. When it comes to Independents, 51 percent oppose.
Even stronger majorities, by 66-33 favor "Healthcare Institutions Requiring All Their Workers to Be Vaccinated Against Covid-19 Before They Can Remain at or Return to Work."
The poll provides commentary about such a strong majority:
Although there is a large partisan difference on employer requirements in general, this is not the case when it comes to healthcare institutions. About two-thirds of the public (66%), including majorities of both Democrats (74%) and Republicans (59%), favor healthcare institutions requiring all their workers to be vaccinated against Covid-19 before they can remain at or return to work (Table 4).
When it comes to the question of colleges and universities, a majority support for mandates, by 56-43. This even includes a majority of Republicans, at 51 percent. Independents, however, oppose these mandates, and by double digits, with 44 percent favoring and 55 percent opposing.
Robert Blendon, a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and who also designed the poll, weighed in on this part of the survey:
The findings track with other surveys from the spring that found Americans are split over employer and K-12 mandates. It will likely take the emergence of a variant that is even more transmissible and dangerous to change attitudes, especially around children, Blendon said.
“If cases among children emerge and children are hospitalized in much larger numbers, you could see these numbers changing,” he said. “People have to see it, they have to know kids are in the hospital in their neighborhood because they weren’t vaccinated.”
The poll's results indicate that Americans are more consistently in favor of employers having vaccine mandates for their workers than they are of customers, with the latter having only 32 favoring and 67 percent opposing. Even Democrats oppose such a mandate, 36 to 63 percent.
Respondents are very much in favor of a vaccine mandate for those who wish to board an airplane, especially international flights (62-37 percent), but also domestic flights (56-44 percent), and cruise ships (60-39 percent).
Beldon always weighed in on that:
There was also broad support for requiring proof of vaccination before boarding flights or cruise ships, which Blendon suspected was because the settings require people to be inside and in close proximity to one another. Most Americans opposed requiring vaccination to attend a sporting event or enter a store.
When it comes to a vaccine passport, which the poll phrases as governments "Providing a Standard Document Individuals Would Carry and Would Certify They Are Vaccinated Against Covid-19," the numbers of favoring versus opposing are statistically identical, at the federal level. Support is at 49 percent, with 50 percent opposing. However, state governments doing so actually has support, 52-47 percent.
The poll was conducted June 22-27, with 1,009 adult respondents. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.