A poll reveals that secular Americans are less likely to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as compared to Evangelicals.
Religion Unplugged released a poll on Tuesday showing that Americans, especially the younger ones, are less likely to be vaccinated. The Christian Post said the poll's data compiler Ryan Burge raised that the results of the data only mean the mainstream media "needs to be turning the spotlight a bit away from evangelicals" and instead focus it "toward the...young and secular."
"Those without any religious affiliation were the least likely to have received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine," the poll said.
The poll, entitled "The Young And Secular Are Least Vaccinated, Not Evangelicals," points out the need to "understand" what considerations people make when it comes to their decisions for vaccination, which is not solely dependent on one's religion. These factors come from Burge's analysis of data released by Data for Progress last May 11 on vaccinations.
Burge, a pastor at the American Baptist Church, is a Political Science Assistant Professor at Eastern Illinois University. He built a regression model based on the report of Data for Progress that includes variables on income, age, gender, education, and race.
Burge's model reveals that "a 30-year-old evangelical is no more or less likely to have gotten the vaccine in early May as a 30-year-old none"--with the latter pertaining to a person with no religion--considering that "factors are controlled."
"One of the primary dimensions that news outlets seem to be focusing on is religion. The headlines are published nearly weekly - evangelical Christians are the ones who are the most reluctant to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet, when I review the data from a survey that was conducted on May 11, 2021 that was administered by Data for Progress, I don't find a lot of evidence that evangelicals are the ones lagging behind. In fact, I find that those without any religious affiliation were the least likely to have received at least one dose of any COVID-19 vaccine," Burge stressed.
Burge said that, in a comparison of a month by month share of Americans being vaccinated for May 2021, 62% were Evangelical Protestants and Catholics, 70% were non-Evangelical Protestants, and 47% had no religion. In an "estimate of vaccine likelihood" for May 2021, 80% belonged to Americans aged 80, while 20% were registered for those aged 80.
For those who have not been vaccinated yet, 18.4% of Evangelical Protestants said they would "likely get the vaccine" followed by 18.9% of those who stated they have no religion, 20.5% of non-Evangelical Protestants, and 23.1% of Catholics for the month of May. While 43.1% of Evangelical Protestants said they will not "get the vaccine", followed by 43.2% of non-Evangelical Protestants, 36.4% of Catholics, and 35.9% of those who have no religion.
"It's interesting that among those who claim no religious affiliation, the share who are "very unlikely" has only increased modestly--from 30% in January to 36% in May. This may represent a number of factors--one being the stark age difference between the nones and Christians," Burge highlighted.
"It's clear that younger people have always been less likely to roll up their sleeves, so this may be a bigger barrier for nones to get the shot than it would be for evangelicals. It's possible with the added threat that is coming from the delta variant, that this may move a lot of young nones off the fence and into the vaccine clinics," the pastor added.
