Americans Divided on Biden’s COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate, Poll Finds

THURSDAY, Sept. 30, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Americans are of two minds about President Joe Biden's COVID-19 vaccine mandate, with political party affiliation playing a pivotal role in their opinions, a new poll finds.

Most Democrats are for it and most Republicans are against it, the survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research revealed.

Overall, the poll showed that 51 percent of Americans approve of the mandate, 34 percent disapprove, and 14 percent have no opinion, the AP reported. But politics tended to determine positions on the mandate: Among Democrats, more than three-quarters approve of it, but only about one-quarter of Republicans say they approve. According to the poll, 64 percent of those who have been vaccinated approve of the mandate and 23 percent disapprove. Among those not vaccinated, 14 percent support the mandate and 67 percent are opposed to it.

About two-thirds of Americans say they are somewhat worried about themselves or their family being infected with the virus, and about the same percentage are somewhat confident the vaccines will be effective against virus variants, the AP found.

Trust in the science on the vaccine information is relatively high. Roughly 70 percent trust the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. But only about 40 percent say they trust the news media for vaccine information and about 60 percent have little or no trust in the media.

For the poll, nearly 1,100 people were surveyed between Sept. 23 and Sept. 27.

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