7 out of 10 Koreans Say They Will Get the COVID-19 Vaccine

President Moon Jae-in receives the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine at Jongno-gu Public Health Center in Seoul on the morning of the 23rd. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] A survey found that 7 out of 10 citizens are willing to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. Regarding compliance with quarantine rules such as the 'ban on private gatherings of five or more people' and 'registration of entry logs at multi-use facilities,' over 90% of respondents said they personally follow the rules well, whereas 20-30% responded that others, excluding themselves, do not comply well.

The Central Disaster and Safety Countermeasures Headquarters of the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced the results of a COVID-19 awareness survey conducted over two days from the 17th to the 18th on the 24th. The survey was conducted by Korea Research on the 17th and 18th. It targeted 1,000 adult men and women aged 18 and over residing nationwide, investigating their awareness of COVID-19 and the extent to which they practice quarantine rules. The confidence level is 95%, with a margin of error of ±3.1%.

According to the survey, among 968 respondents excluding the 32 who had already been vaccinated, 656 (67.8%) expressed their intention to receive the COVID-19 vaccination. Those who had no intention accounted for 12.9%, and 19.1% were unsure.

Among the 32 vaccinated individuals, when asked about their willingness to recommend the COVID-19 vaccination, 27 (84.4%) said they would recommend it. Four (12.5%) said they would not recommend it, and one (3.1%) was unsure.

Social distancing stickers are attached at the entrance of the temporary COVID-19 screening clinic set up at Seoul Station Plaza.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

Regarding the degree of compliance with quarantine rules, most respondents said they personally follow the rules well but believe others do not comply as well as they do. In particular, for the ban on private gatherings of five or more people, 80.7% said they personally 'practice it very well,' but only 18.7% thought that the general public, excluding themselves, complied well. For mask-wearing and registration of entry logs at multi-use facilities, the percentages of respondents who said they personally comply very well were 75.9% and 83.8%, respectively, whereas only 37.4% and 25.7% thought others complied well.

Regarding strengthening quarantine rules under the current COVID-19 situation, 83.1% of citizens agreed. Opinions on whether the current situation is safe (53.6%) or unsafe (45.0%) were similar, while 60.5% believed the risk of infection is low, but 86.6% perceived the damage from infection as serious.

Support for strengthening quarantine rules to suppress COVID-19 was also 83.1%, and the majority of citizens responded positively to measures holding people accountable for violating quarantine rules, such as claiming compensation (87.1%), increasing fines (81.1%), and excluding violators from various supports (84.5%).

Regarding stress caused by COVID-19, 87.3% of citizens reported experiencing stress. Among them, 85.7% cited 'not knowing when the COVID-19 pandemic will end' as the main cause of stress. Other causes included 'political and social controversies related to COVID-19' (42.7%) and 'being the only one following quarantine rules' (38.6%).

As ways to relieve this stress, 68.4% of the 1,000 respondents chose indoor activities such as watching TV, using the internet, reading, and indoor exercise ('home training'). Simple outdoor activities like walking (47.7%) and home consumption activities such as online shopping (47.0%) followed.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.