By PAULA TRACY, InDepthNH.org
DURHAM – Six of 10 adults in New Hampshire say they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and those who are not likely will not get a vaccine, according to a Granite State Poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center poll of more than 1,000 residents.
About 18 percent said they got COVID-19 in the past three months.
The survey, released Tuesday, found that 27 percent of respondents have tested positive for COVID-19 since the pandemic began and six in 10 adults say they are boosted, with another 17% being vaccinated but not boosted.
“Overall, seven in eight Granite Staters likely have some protection against COVID-19 through vaccination or recent infection,” the survey said.
Virtually no unvaccinated adults plan to get vaccinated, most frequently citing a lack of belief in the vaccine’s effectiveness, the poll said.
Only four in 10 children in the state aged 5-17 are vaccinated against COVID-19 and almost no parents are planning to vaccinate the children who remain unvaccinated.
This comes as the state has seen cases falling abruptly since the first days of 2022. The survey was released almost two years to the day since the first resident was diagnosed with the coronavirus in New Hampshire.
Still, 22 percent of those who took the survey said they are not vaccinated at all and said they don’t plan to get a vaccine any time soon.
Respondents to the survey who are not vaccinated cited a lack of belief in the vaccine’s effectiveness as the primary reason.
The full survey can be found here: https://scholars.unh.edu/survey_center_polls/690.
Tracy Keirns, assistant director of the UNH Survey Center said the results of the most recent Granite State Poll are fairly consistent with other polls taken monthly since the pandemic began.
“We asked a lot of these questions,” before. She said she was not surprised by the responses.
She said the survey did not look at trends in data from state-to-state although they have looked at Vermont data in recent months.
When in the past, there were national comparisons, she said, data was comparable to New Hampshire.
Keirns said she is not sure if there will be future COVID polls but it would be predicated on the need for more information “if there is reason to gather more information on managing the virus we would continue to ask questions.”
The poll involved 1,081 respondents between Feb. 18-27 and had a margin of sampling error of about 3 percent and a response rate of 29 percent.
Those more likely to have gotten the virus live near the Massachusetts border and are in homes with children.
About 9 percent who refused the vaccine said they have done so for religious reasons and 3 percent said they are medically unable to receive the vaccines.
About 47 percent of all respondents said that they trust science and government advice, like the Centers for Disease Control.
On Tuesday, the state reported that 291,626 residents of the state of about 1.4 million have or have had COVID-19 and that about 1 percent or 2,387 have died from the virus.
Current hospitalizations are now low, with 82 people in hospital beds with COVID-19.
The state reported 10 new deaths on Tuesday and 1,399 current cases of the virus, though the latter number is not considered complete because many new cases are not being reported to the state.