Polls show Americans are growing more confident about coronavirus vaccines

Large numbers of healthcare workers are still wary of the vaccine

Confidence in the coronavirus vaccine is growing in the US, according to a number of surveys and scientific papers.

Surveys from recent weeks revealed that 60 per cent of Americans now say they would take the coronavirus vaccine, an increase from 1 in 2 Americans in September.

One survey, from Pew Research, polled 12,648 Americans and found that 60 per cent felt comfortable taking the coronavirus vaccine. USAToday originally reported the findings.

The Kaiser Family Foundation had similar results from their own poll, which found 71 per cent of respondents saying they would take the vaccine. 1,676 people were polled for that survey.

That comes on the heels of another report, published by Forbes, showing that large numbers of healthcare workers were refusing to take the vaccine.

In Ohio, Governor Mike DeWine said that 60 per cent of nursing home staff refused to take the vaccine.

In Houston, the director of critical care at a large hospital told NPR that nearly half the health facility's nursing staff declined to be vaccinated.

And in New York, a little over half of surveyed New York Fire Department members said they refused to take the vaccine.

A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that 29 per cent of healthcare workers polled were unwilling to take the vaccine, citing fears of side effects and lack of confidence that the government ensured a safe vaccine.

The Pfizer vaccine was developed independent of the US government and was given emergency authorisation by the US Food and Drug Administration.

A Pew Research Centre poll from December found that Black healthcare workers were the most sceptical, with 43 per cent citing a lack of confidence in the vaccine.

Dr Nikhila Juvvadi, chief clinical officer at Chicago's Loretto Hospital, told NPR: "There's no transparency between pharmaceutical companies or research companies – or the government sometimes – on how many people from" Black and Latino communities were involved in the vaccine research.

In a New York Times op-ed, emergency physicians Benjamin Thomas and Monique Smith wrote that "vaccine reluctance is a direct consequence of the medical system's mistreatment of Black people" and past use of medical procedures as vehicle for eugenic programs aimed at Black communities.