Most Americans are willing to take a COVID-19 vaccine when it's available, a new poll found.
A Gallup poll of 2,968 adults conducted Nov. 16-29 and released Tuesday found 63% of Americans would agree to be vaccinated against the coronavirus if the shot was "available right now at no cost." The other 37% said they would not agree to be vaccinated.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The 63% of respondents now willing to take the vaccine is a jump from 58% in October and 50% in September.
Willingness to get the COVID-19 vaccine has also "nearly rebounded" to the previous high of 66%, which Gallup reported in late July.
Meanwhile, the percentage of respondents who said they would not get vaccinated is lower than it has been in recent months, down from 42% in October and 50% in September. It's also near the low of 34% reported in July.
The United States is on the cusp of having a vaccine ready to roll out as multiple pharmaceutical companies work to get their vaccine candidates approved and administered to some Americans by the end of the year.
The U.S. Food and Drug administration on Tuesday said data from drugmaker Pfizer's vaccine trials were "consistent" with its recommendations for emergency use authorization, CNBC reports. The agency is expected to decide whether to authorize the vaccine in the coming days.
Pfizer says its vaccine has an efficacy rate of 95% and that it could produce up to 50 million doses this year.
Drugmaker Moderna is also seeking emergency use authorization from the FDA and has said data show its vaccine has an efficacy rate of over 94%.
A vaccine's efficacy is measured under "ideal conditions" in controlled clinical trials.
Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccine candidates require two doses. Both companies say no serious safety concerns were found during their trials.
The first two doses of Pfizer's vaccines were administered Tuesday in the United Kingdom to a 90-year-old woman and an 81-year-old man.
Once a vaccine is approved in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advises that health care workers and residents of assisted living facilities be first in line to get one. The CDC expects it will have enough doses to vaccinate 20 million Americans by the end of the year. After the initial doses, it expects to be able to vaccinate between 5 and 10 million each week.
The Gallup poll also found that Americans over age 65 were the most likely to be willing to get the vaccine.
While 74% of respondents ages 65 and older said they would get vaccinated, 52% of those ages 45 to 64 and 68% ages 18 to 44 said the same.
Men were more likely than women to say they would take the vaccine — 66% compared to 60%.
White adults were more likely than nonwhite adults to be willing to get the vaccine, with 67% and 53% who said they would get the shot, respectively.
Additionally, 68% of respondents with a college degree said they would get the vaccine, while 61% of respondents without one said the same.
The survey also broke down results by political party.
While 75% of Democrats said they would agree to get vaccinated, 50% of Republicans and 61% of Independents said the same.
Gallup says a "return to normalcy" depends on a significant number of Americans getting the vaccine.
"The percentage of Americans currently willing to get vaccinated may still be below where public health experts want it, because the end of the pandemic is now tied at least in part to the speed with which sufficient numbers of Americans can get vaccinated," it says.
