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Political affiliation remains the most reliable predictor of attitudes towards the safety of Covid vaccines.

A year ago, American polling company Rasmussen Reports found that 28% of Americans believed they knew someone who died due to Covid vaccines, with almost half of survey respondents attributing “a significant number of unexplained deaths” to the vaccines.

Now, a new Rasmussen Reports survey reveals that a year on, public opinion has not changed much on the subject of Covid vaccine harms.

Just over half (53%, up 4% on last year) of Americans believe that Covid vaccines may be to blame for many unexplained deaths, according to the new report, released on 12 January 2024. Additionally, one in four (24%, down 4% on last year) Americans believes they know someone who died from the jab.

Additionally, 54% of Americans believe there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the safety of Covid vaccines, while 33% think people who worry about vaccine safety are spreading conspiracy theories.

The survey of 1,133 American adults, conducted between 7-9 January 2024, shows that despite dogged commitment to ‘safe and effective’ messaging from regulators and public health bodies, despite media propaganda and gaslighting over safety concerns, and despite ongoing censorship of Covid vaccine injuries — about half of the American public just ain’t buying it.

At the same time, half of the public is buying the official line despite revelations of high levels of DNA contamination and unintended frame-shifting errors in the mRNAs, despite evidence of regulatory failure, despite unprecedented high rates of adverse event reporting, and so on.

The Political Divide on Covid Vaccines

That the Rasmussen Reports survey of attitudes towards Covid vaccine safety has yielded similar results year-on-year is suggestive that people’s beliefs relating to the Covid vaccines are entrenched, and not necessarily adaptable to new information.

This is supported by the fact that while there was no significant difference between racial groups or genders when it comes to the question of what’s driving unexplained deaths (in every group, at least half or more blamed the Covid vaccines), there was a marked differential along political lines.

Twice as many Republicans (44%) answered that it was very likely that Covid vaccines were to blame for unexplained deaths, as compared to Democrats (22%). Conversely, 22% of Democrats think it’s not at all likely that Covid vaccines are causing unexplained deaths, whereas only 7% of Republicans share this view.

While 69% of Republicans think that there are legitimate safety concerns about the Covid vaccines, only 37% of Democrats agree. Only 21% of Republicans believe that people who worry about vaccine safety are spreading conspiracy theories (10% are unsure), yet this is the position of 55% of Democrats (8% are unsure).

The political divide on this issue is hardly surprising, as Covid vaccines and policy have been heavily politicised since the outset of the pandemic. Nothing demonstrates the political nature of attitudes towards Covid vaccination better than the below video (2 mins 15 sec) by friend of DDU, MilkBarTV. Democrats were the OG anti-vaxxers, until Trump was out, vaccines were in, and the tables turned.

A final observation is that the characterisation of those concerned about Covid vaccine safety as a fringe minority of ‘conspiracy theorists’ is shown, in this survey, to be false – they are the majority (53%). In fact, it is those using the ‘conspiracy theorist’ pejorative who are the minority (33%). They just happen to be a loud minority with outsized influence in the top journals and media outlets.

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Republished with thanks to Dystopian Down Under. Image courtesy of Unsplash.