A series of recent survey questions show a clear majority is on board with various groups of workers, such as health care workers, government employees or teachers, being required to get vaccine or stop working. But a clear split remains over requiring a broader range of employees to get vaccinated — unless they are given the option of being tested weekly for Covid to remain unvaccinated.
“There seems to be slightly more acceptance of the idea of mandates,” said said Liz Hamel, vice president and director of public opinion and survey research at KFF, the health care think tank that is one of the groups conducting the surveys. “But I wouldn’t call it popular.”
Both found just over 60% of those surveyed support vaccine mandates for employees at hospitals and other health care facilities. The Gallup survey also found that 60% support vaccines for federal government employees, while KFF found 55% supporting such a mandate. Both those specific groups would likely be required to get vaccinated under the Biden administration proposal.
A clear majority favored vaccine requirements for teachers and other school staff, with 63% support in the Gallup reading and 58% in KFF.
The KFF survey found 50% opposed to the employers in general requiring vaccination, compared to 48% supporting. However that jumped to 58% support if the option for vaccination or testing was included. Gallup also found 58% supporting the requirement of vaccination or testing for businesses with 100 or more workers.
Gallup also found that 58% of workers would…