Two-thirds of Toronto parents ‘certain or somewhat likely’ to get young kids vaccinated against COVID-19, survey says
With the new coronavirus season about to kick into high gear, it’s good to know that even the most vocal anti-vaccination activists on the internet appear to agree that it’s best to vaccinate kids against a virus that may cause serious problems down the road. In fact, just a month ago, someone with more than 200,000 Twitter followers got so angry about a pro-vaccine story that he posted “F*ck your coronavirus vaccine,” and then deleted his account.
And the recent Pew Research Center survey suggests that even mainstream anti-vaccine activists are on board. Two-thirds of Americans, and three-quarters of Canadians, believe it’s “safer” to vaccinate kids against a disease like whooping cough than it is to expose them to the virus after they’ve already been exposed, according to the survey.
Those are some pretty strong numbers, considering that the vast majority of the general population in both countries is either not even thinking about getting vaccinated or are too young to be getting vaccinated at all.
The survey, released by Pew Research Center on April 2 and conducted March 13-23, also demonstrates the strong public support for vaccines in Canada, where 69 percent of respondents said that they “would be very or somewhat likely” to get a vaccine even if it meant not knowing what the vaccine was, according to The Canadian Press:
When asked “Assuming you were not already vaccinated, would you get a (vaccine),” 59 percent of respondents said “yes,” compared with 29 percent who said they would likely not get a “vaccine.”
As an aside, the Canadian government actually announced in late February that it would be pulling out of the HPV vaccine program, which was designed to vaccinate children against HPV and was recently found to cause permanent brain damage. The anti-vaxxers have long argued that the program was simply trying to keep girls from getting vaccinated, since the vast majority of girls wouldn