Survey of Attitudes on Personal Protection Interventions Against COVID‐19 Including MMR Vaccination and Future Anti‐COVID Vaccines
2020
Abstract: An electronic survey was conducted in October, 2020 among individuals primarily age
60 and older regarding their degree of confidence of deriving personal protection from 8
different antiCOVID interventions: social isolation, lockdowns, avoiding restaurants, taking
MMR vaccine, wearing masks when indoors with others, avoiding hotels, avoiding commercial
air travel, and using the first future specific antiCOVID vaccine. Responses were received from
135 persons from many different U.S. regions and 5 foreign countries. Respondents were
generally individuals with very high levels of education and personal achievement. Results
demonstrated wide diversity of responses regarding each of these interventions. None were
strongly supported by a majority of respondents, but those receiving the largest proportions of
strong support were social isolation (41%), wearing masks indoors (41%), and using the first
antiCOVID vaccine (41%). MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccination was viewed much more positively than negatively but had the highest proportion of individuals who felt they had
insufficient data to formulate an opinion. The largest number of strong negative assessments
were toward lockdowns (37%). We speculate that the wide variation in perception of possible
benefits from the surveyed interventions, most of which have been widely practiced by or
imposed upon millions of individuals, in this highly accomplished older population at increased
personal risk from COVID19 reflects the current absence of rigorous scientific proof of the
efficacy of any these interventions, and the continuation of the epidemic despite the
widespread utilization of most of them.
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